Child Circle – Written Evidence (UME0025)
Across Europe children are at risk of many forms of violence. Domestic violence. Sexual abuse and exploitation. Internet and social media related violence. Trafficking. Some children are particularly vulnerable. Children seeking international protection. Children in alternative care or on the streets. Missing children. Minority children, such as Roma. Children with disabilities. European action by the Council of Europe and the European Union has a significant impact on the protection of children across Europe.
CHILD CIRCLE is a Brussels based non-profit organisation which supports the strengthening of child protection systems in Europe (www.childcircle.eu). In particular, Child Circle promotes European action which improves child participation and supports professionals to work together to protect children. A key goal of CHILD CIRCLE is to combine expertise on EU legislative and policy measures with the experience of practitioners across the region to ensure real improvements to the lives of children. This submission is based on our EU policy and project experience in the recent development of both EU laws and EU practical measures of support for Member States in responding to specific child protection challenges, in particular, those faced by children in migration.
1. Introduction
1.1 This submission responds to the UK House of Lords Inquiry to shed light on the nature and scale of the problems faced by unaccompanied minors in EU Member States, to consider whether EU provisions on unaccompanied minors translate into clear obligations for national bodies and professionals at all levels, to assess the achievements of the 2010–2014 Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors and to identify remaining gaps in law and policy and explore options for further cooperation among EU Member States.
1.2 We welcome this timely Inquiry and believe that the House of Lords ultimately should extend its scope beyond unaccompanied children to address all children in migration. Whereas unaccompanied children clearly face acute risks and needs, and specific safeguards are required to respond to their situation, many children in migration are currently in very precarious positions and at risk of serious neglect, exploitation and family separation. We believe that what is needed now at EU level is a comprehensive approach, building on progress to date under the new EU legislative provisions and the EU Action Plan on unaccompanied minors, to ensure appropriate child protection and child rights safeguards for all children in migration. This includes both children travelling with and separated from families, and regardless of whether they seek asylum, have been trafficked, or seek economic or family reunification opportunities.
1.3 A comprehensive EU approach to children in migration should support Member States in ensuring that their best interests is a primary consideration in all actions in their regard and that their common rights to assistance, support and protection can be fulfilled. This position is shared by a wide variety of children’s rights and human rights organisations across Europe (see Joint open letter to the European Council dated October 31,2015 Time to act to ensure children’s rights in the EU’s migration policy: 10 Action Points).
1.4 Importantly, the need for a comprehensive approach for the protection of children throughout the migration chain has been recognised in the Commission Communication on the State of Play of the European Agenda on Migration dated February 10 2016.
1.5 Next steps at EU level should be anchored in key recent safeguards as regards asylum seeking, trafficked children (see the Reference Document on EU law & policy on unaccompanied children www.connectproject.eu). They include individual needs assessment, family unity provisions, representation, best interests’ assessments and a requirement for trained professionals.
1.6 Given that challenges to implement these safeguards nationally are heightened by the current situation, the EU has a greater role than ever to support implementation efforts.
1.7 Alongside this work, it will be important to address deficits that exist in the EU legislative provisions for migrant children and seek to improve national standards in these areas. These include detention provisions for undocumented families with children, as well as the absence of a harmonised best interests’ determination procedure across all the instruments, in particular for cases involving unaccompanied children.
1.8 It is also abundantly clear that the current circumstances require additional new EU measures which establish better cross border cooperation and which potentially involve pooled resources or procedures, so as to avoid violations of the basic rights of children here in the EU.
1.9 In designing these new measures, it is crucial that the EU continue to pay close attention to what the specific situation of children require, rather than focussing primarily on the situation of adults. Otherwise there will be a real danger of eroding, rather than consolidating, the progress achieved in terms of requiring child sensitive reception and adapted procedures in the recent legislation. Once more, a comprehensive approach can guide EU action in the field.
2. Key Challenges & Potential EU Responses for Children in Migration
2.1 We will focus on four broad challenges facing children in migration in Europe and suggest potential EU responses for them.
2.2 Limited legal pathways into the EU: there are extremely limited legal pathways to the EU, leading to the risk of smuggling, family separation, injury and death during perilous journeys.
2.3 This needs to be changed without delay through establishing effective resettlement schemes. Countries should also consider legal pathways more creatively, for example, by introducing more educational visa programme for young refugees. EU support for Member States in considering and organising these efforts could lead to new arrangements, as well as stimulate duplication of successful efforts in different Member States, depending on national circumstances.
2.4 Divergent and chaotic reception arrangements within the EU: Once within the EU, migrant children should encounter a common European international protection system, which is a necessity within a space of open borders, shared fundamental rights and solidarity between EU Member States. However, this common European system is relatively recent and has not yet been fully implemented at national and cross border level, whilst new elements need to be added to address the mass influxes currently experienced (for example, relocation schemes, stronger family reunification arrangements, higher resettlement schemes).
2.5 This situation has led to fluctuating national policies and measures, tending, on one extreme, to very restrictive systems in some countries and, on the other extreme, to overloaded systems in countries which have traditionally had a more generous approach than their neighbours.
2.6 In contrast, a collective and organised effort across the region to respond to the needs of migrant children could lift them out of detention or inadequate reception in crowded border and transit areas, reunite families and ultimately educate children for their future, regardless of the country in which that lies.
2.7 It is not an easy task, but it should start with real cooperation at practical level between national reception authorities and national child protection authorities, exchange of best practices between Member States, support for effective reception, health and education strategies, and better common tools and resources that can be used by all Member States when operating the common procedures.
2.8 The EU can play a substantial role in finding consensus on how these arrangements can best operate. It can also deploy joint resources for practical measures of support and EU funding for timely projects, such as the Nidos-led project on Reception and Living in Families. More ambitious efforts to ensure better transnational cooperation would involve creating a European network of child protection authorities for the purpose of cross border cases of this kind, or exploring the creation of a European guardianship authority.
2.8 A failure in Europe to disrupt and prevent trafficking and exploitation of vulnerable children: Despite political rhetoric and media outcries, there is an astounding lack of basic child protection safeguards at every point in their journey into and within the EU.
2.9 Failure to receive these children properly, properly inform them of their situation and opportunities, and put in place procedures which achieve durable solutions, often leads both unaccompanied children and families to place their fates in the hands of traffickers. In a number of regional projects in which Child Circle and its directors have participated, including the recent EU funded SUMMIT project, it has become evident that, amongst other reasons, absence of adequate information, support and reception contributes to the disappearances of unaccompanied children from care. The SUMMIT research has also shown that failure by authorities to cooperate nationally and transnationally leads to an absence of follow-up investigations, as well as absence of adequate preventive measures in the first instance. In the EU funded CONNECT Project, research pointed to the need to build and share better knowledge of trafficking risks generally and in individual cases, through regular sharing of information amongst actors involved, within countries and across borders. The need for specialised actors and services has also been highlighted.
2.10 The EU clearly has an urgent ongoing role to play in raising awareness, ensuring better implementation of EU obligations and supporting regional resources for actors. Recent EU funded projects have focussed on joint training of professionals involved in preventing and responding to trafficking in children. As a further example, the Fundamental Rights Agency and the Commission adopted the FRA handbook on guardianship for children deprived of parental care which sets up guidance to reinforce guardianship systems to cater for the specific needs of child victims of trafficking. This work had been carried out under the EU Anti-Trafficking Strategy. The Strategy expires at the end of 2016 but will be succeeded by a new policy framework. This is an important moment to identify priority actions which will effectively respond to trafficking risks, including further development and support for national and transnational trafficking referral mechanisms. This can build on work by ICMPD and IOM in the field.
2.11 Living in limbo: lack of effective procedures to find durable solutions: Once children are formally within the jurisdiction of a Member State (with applications for international protection or a durable solution as a trafficked child, or the case for their return, under examination), they may find themselves effectively in limbo. Although EU law requires their best interests to be taken into account, it does not prescribe a single process for doing so, and there are not yet widespread tools and means to ensure current procedures take account of relevant information. In the absence of an effective process, children are sometimes simply provided with subsidiary protection or discretionary leave to stay until they are 18.
2.12 We recommend that guidance on durable solutions continues as a priority area for further collective efforts. EASO work has the potential to contribute to solutions, including through its training module for interviewing children and its developing guidance on the best interests of the child. This can draw on UNHCR’s Heart of the Matter guidance on credibility assessments of children seeking asylum in the European Union, the Safe and Sound guidance by UNHCR and UNICEF on BID and national initiatives on best interests in the asylum process such as that of the Belgian Asylum Authority. EU funding for important regional projects should continue, including training for legal professionals (such as the Separated Children project in which Child Circle participates), the UNICEF Child Notices which aim to provide country reports on the situation of children in the countries of origin and initiatives such as the Irish Refugee Council led project on Durable Solutions for unaccompanied children in Europe. Also important are efforts to monitor - and thereby improve - return and reintegration processes when they are found to be in the best interests of the child, such as the HIT Foundation Project on Monitoring Return of Minors.
3. Summary of Progress to Date at EU level & Recommendations for Next Steps
3.1 Given that new EU law has recently been adopted and has to be properly implemented and applied, much is in the hands of national actors. The progress made in the recent EU legislative cycle, in ensuring that child rights and child protection obligations - alongside migration provisions - should be fully respected, rather than in practice overlooked or set aside. Whilst much more could be done to improve EU standards in key areas, it is also important to secure those obligations which have already been agreed. The Commission ultimately acts as a guardian of EU law, and should carefully monitor national implementation and take action where it is inadequate.
3.2 As regards these existing obligations, it is clear that the EU is also in a unique position to support national implementation. The EU Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors (implemented by DG Home) provided some valuable support to the process by setting down common principles and priority actions for EU actions, making unaccompanied children more prominent in EU funding, galvanising the work of the EU agencies in the field, and providing a focus for important exchange of experience between national policymakers, IGOs, NGOs, practitioners and regional experts. Also significant at EU level was the EU Child Rights Agenda and the work of DG Justice, as well as the work of the EU Anti-Trafficking Strategy, both of which contributed to the development of substantial guidance from the Commission in the form of a Commission Reflection Paper on integrated child protection systems, with two successive annual EU child rights Forum addressing the topic with stakeholders from across Europe. This put an important focus on multi-disciplinary, inter-agency, child friendly procedures.
3.4 This work needs to receive continued political commitment and increased resources, within the Commission and the agencies. Strengthening child protection systems needs to be an integral part of EU work and funding priorities in this field. What sometimes appears to be viewed as a luxury, or even by some as a pull factor, is in fact a most basic and essential safeguard, both for the children who arrive and our society as a whole.
3.5 There are clearly also areas where new EU measures need to be agreed by Member States and rendered operational rapidly. We recommend that the Commission and the EU agencies boost efforts to work closely with child protection actors to establish special measures and safeguards for children all along the migration path, including in neighbouring countries.
3.6 In conclusion, all actors need to work collectively, with the EU playing a pivotal role in ensuring EU standards are met and supporting essential cross-border and inter-agency cooperation across Member States.
4. Further Background to the submissions of Child Circle
4.1 Our submission roots in our knowledge and experience of EU responses to specific child protection challenges, including those faced by children in migration.
4.2 Child Circle is currently active in ongoing advocacy concerning the EU response to children in migration (see recent news in www.childcircle.eu). Child Circle has also been involved in a range of expert consultations, including those of the Fundamental Rights Agency (on guardians for children deprived of parental care, EU child protection mapping and EU citizen children at risk) as well as the Council of Baltic Sea States on protection of unaccompanied children. We are also members of the EASO Expert Network on Activities on Children.
4.3 CHILD CIRCLE is currently working on several regional projects including: SUMMIT: Safeguarding Unaccompanied Migrant Minors from going Missing by Identifying Best Practices and Training Actors on Interagency Cooperation, with Missing Children Europe as lead partner; PROMISE: Promoting Multi-disciplinary and Inter-agency Services for Child Victims of Violence, based on the Barnahus model, in Europe, with the Council of Baltic Sea States as lead partner; Separated Children: Development of guidance and training on litigation practices and options in cases involving children separated from their parents, for diverse reasons including migration, imprisonment, parental abduction, with the AIRE Centre as lead partner (starting in 2016).
4.4 CHILD CIRCLE has been a member of the advisory panel of some key regional projects including: Child Notices: “Better information for durable solutions and protection” EU funded project led by UNICEF Netherlands; Best Practice in Finding and Implementing Durable Solutions for Separated Children in Europe: Irish Refugee Council led EU funded project; and The Child Protection Hub for South East Europe (www.childhub.org).
4.5 We have recently contributed to a series of reports on key issues, including UNHCR’s the “Heart of the Matter” (on credibility assessments of child asylum seekers), the report “No Child Should be Stateless” (of the End Child Statelessness Campaign) as well as a Chapter in the recent publication on “The EU and Global Protection of Child Rights”: The EU and Child Protection Systems: the role and added value of the EU in advancing children’s protection rights which will be launched in November in the European Parliament.
4.6 While working as senior policy adviser on asylum, migration and trafficking for the Save the Children EU Office from May 2007 to September 2013, one of our directors was actively engaged in consultations with the Commission on the adoption of the EU Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors, its implementation through practical measures of support and midterm evaluation, as well as advocacy and policy work on the adoption of key EU legal instruments in the field of asylum, migration and trafficking. Save the Children will undoubtedly be an invaluable source of information and expertise to the UK House of Lords in its current Inquiry.
4.7 As an independent adviser, she was the Regional Policy Manager for the Save the Children led EU funded Project connect (www.connectproject.eu) on unaccompanied children which examined the actors which respond to the situation of unaccompanied children, how they work together and in light of this how newly adopted EU measures on unaccompanied children should be implemented at national level. The Connect Report contains a chapter of recommendations on next steps in the field of unaccompanied children. Although it was written before the recent surge in numbers of asylum seeking children, many of its recommendations remain as urgent as ever.
10 March 2016