Roundup: Council of Europe reminds leaders of their responsibilities to child migrants

At the opening of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) current affairs debate here Thursday on "The need for a common European response to migration challenges," Reha Denemec (Turkey, European Conservatives Group) said countries needed to "show more solidarity in receiving refugees" and support countries bearing the brunt of the migrant burden.

At the heart of the PACE debate is the fact political leaders are starkly divided over measures to be put in place to confront the massive arrival of migrants since the beginning of the year, and more particularly child migrants placed in detention.

At the beginning of June, two girls aged six and 3.5 years old were detained in a holding area of the Roissy airport in Paris. The French human rights defender Jacques Toubon initiated investigations and demanded that placing child migrants in retention be forbidden by law.

A few weeks earlier, the discovery in Ceuta, Spain of an 8-year-old Ivorian child being sent in a suitcase through customs, provoked deep emotions. The image from the scanner which revealed the child's presence in the baggage caused an enormous shock throughout Europe.

"The parliaments of the member states must take immediate measures to put an end to the detention of migrant children," pleaded the Rapporteur General Doris Fiala (Switzerland, Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group), Wednesday, during a roundtable debate.

"The situation of child migrants is intolerable. Our campaign 'For a Europe without detained immigrant children' must reach the governmental level at any cost and at quickly as possible," she insisted.

A report by the NGO Human Rights Watch made public this week revealed that children coming from states at war are often traveling alone and without hope of finding refuge within the European Union (EU). Many among them are trying to escape the war in Syria and the situation in Afghanistan, but also from the recruitment of child soldiers and underage marriages.

In 2014, more than 6,100 child asylum seekers or migrants traveled to Greece, estimates the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) according to figures produced by the Greek police and coast guard services. More than a thousand of these children travelled without a single member of their families. The High Commissioner estimates that the real figures are very likely much higher since many children traveling alone claim to be 18 years old or older in order to avoid a prolonged detention during which the authorities seek placements in reception centers reserved for unaccompanied minors.

"There exist viable alternatives to retention which allow protection of children. Their interests must be defended by the states," affirmed Ben Lewis, coordinator of the campaign "For a Europe without detained immigrant children. "The risks for their mental health and their development have been clearly demonstrated by serious studies," he added.

Andrea Vonkeman, a senior policy officer at UNHCR, declared herself "dumbfounded" by the situation. "Detention provokes specific syndromes. We know, notably without ambiguity, that psychiatric problems are multiplied by three that they are proportional to the duration of the retention," she affirmed.

Genevieve Sauberli, a specialist in human rights at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), concurred: "A report published last year shows that one child in three placed in detention presents psychological troubles while the normal rate of prevalence in the population is 2 percent." "Without speaking of the risk to become a victim of sexual violence which five times greater," she clarified. "Migratory control measures should never come before the interest of the child. Just like migrants should in no case become the object of penalization," Sauberli added.

Beyond ethical concerns, legal questions are raised, as well as those regarding the means currently available, which are equally complex issues to be considered. "The convention on the rights of children prescribes specific obligations. These include that all decisions concerning children must be made in the superior interest of the child and guarantee the child the right to development, the family unit, to education, to information, as well as the right to have the opportunity to express oneself and to be heard," recalled Sauberli.

United Nations specialists are pleading for diverse alternatives to detention, such as the recording and-or filing of documents, of deposits or guarantees, reporting obligations, liberty under surveillance, and assigned residence. Some alternatives to the retention are considerably cheaper than detention itself, they affirmed, especially if cost calculations include economic and social consequences.

There remains, however, amongst parliamentarians, as is the case throughout the political class and in European opinion, the belief of former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard that Europe "cannot receive all the misery of the world."

Parliamentarian Reha Denemec, however, made a call today at the Council of Europe for "all of the members of this Assembly to call on European leaders urging them to take up their responsibilities towards refugees." Endit