After checking whether Spain implements the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, the UN has asked Spain to change its protocol on unaccompanied foreign minors to guarantee their identification at the border. The UN further urged Spain to ensure effective legal protection of foreign minors across Spain.
The UN has asked Spain to change its protocol on unaccompanied foreign migrants and to guarantee their identification at the border to ensure they can apply for asylum. The request was made by the UN Committee for the Rights of the Child regarding the situation faced by minors who reach the border with the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and on the Andalusian coast.
UN committee 'concerned' by treatment of minors in need of international protection
Members of the committee expressed concern for the situation of minors who need international protection and are being refused entry ''without the necessary guarantees''. They urged Spanish authorities to ''ensure that all procedures followed abide by standards set by national and international legislation''. The call comes after authorities in Ceuta and Melilla suggested to further slim down procedures to reject unaccompanied foreign migrants ''to respond to the very serious problem'' affecting the two enclaves, as stressed last week by the mayor-president of Ceuta, Juan Jesus Vivas.
"The Committee is concerned by the methods used to identify minors", said one of its members, Gehad Madi, according to Spanish media reports. The expert cited, among others, radiological tests to established the age of young migrants, often made "automatically", in spite of the fact that results are "never exact", with the consequence that "there are children who are treated like adults".
'Children treated like adults' at the border
Luis Pedernera, another expert who is a member of the UN committee, said the main problem consists in the fact that, while tests are being carried out to determine the age of young migrants, "minors are detained together with adults" in temporary holding centers, a cause of "great concern" for the UN. Meanwhile, about 100 teen migrants are currently fending for themselves in the ports of Ceuta and Melilla and "risk falling prey to human trafficking networks".
The UN Committee has urged Spanish authorities to ensure the effective legal protection of unaccompanied foreign minors across Spain, guaranteeing the implementation of the principle under which minors are not refused entry at the border. It also denounced the "high level of violence" and the "inadequate treatment and protection" provided by experts at hosting centers for minors, following reports on the "prostitution of young girls, insufficient access to regular education and free time", as well as the "lack of mechanisms" to report abuse so allegations can be investigated. "Some of the centers for unaccompanied minors truly don't abide by the required standards, are crowded to twice their capacity and this must change with the creation of adequate structures", said Gehad Madi.