Limbo

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/14/child-refugees-in-limbo-in-calais-because-of-home-office-delays?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet

The Guardian

Child refugees in limbo in Calais 'because of Home Office delays'
Labour MP Yvette Cooper has written to the home secretary about the plight of child refugees at risk in French camps

Around 20 of the estimated 88,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe have so far arrived in the UK, a tiny figure that has prompted harsh criticism.

Jessica Elgot
Sunday 14 August 2016 19.22 BST Last modified on Monday 15 August 2016 01.52 BST
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Hundreds of child refugees have been unacceptably left in limbo in Calais camps by Home Office delays, despite having the legal right to be reunited with families in the UK, Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP, has written in a letter to the home secretary, Amber Rudd.

Just 40 children and teenagers have been been allowed into the UK to be reunited with their families under the EU’s Dublin regulation, with charities identifying more than 200 still waiting in the camps. Only 35 of those are understood to have cases in progress, taken up by different voluntary organisations with the Home Office.

Cooper said the Home Office was given details last month of 110 children and teenagers still in Calais, who have Dublin rights to be reunited with their families in the UK. No action had been taken on their cases, Cooper said.

“At the current rate of progress it would take over a year to reunite every child with their family,” Cooper wrote. “Even when Britain has agreed to the ‘take charge’ request and agreed they can join their family here, there are disgraceful further bureaucratic delays as the children and teenagers are left to wait at risk in the Calais camp for many more weeks before they are finally transferred.”

Another 200 children in the camps in Calais are eligible for sanctuary in Britain under the Dubs amendment to bring child refugees to the UK, brought about by Labour peer Alf Dubs, formerly a child refugee himself.

His amendment in the House of Lords brought a U-turn on the Immigration Act, committing the government to relocate lone child refugees in Europe “as soon as possible”. Though no figure was given, ministers briefed that several thousand were expected to come to Britain.

Around 20 of the estimated 88,000 unaccompanied child refugees in Europe have so far arrived in the UK, a tiny figure that has prompted harsh criticism.

In the letter, Cooper called on Rudd to speed up the process of sanctuary for child refugees, whom she said were at “dangerous risk of trafficking, abuse, exploitation and slavery”.

The letter read: “Right now the government is failing children both under the Dublin agreement and the Dubs commitment. Neither the British nor the French government have put in place a proper process to deal with the Dublin cases in Calais and instead seem to be deliberately adding delays to the work done by charities.”

The 40 children and teenagers from the camps in Calais who have so far been reunited with family in the UK under the Dublin agreement have only arrived as a result of legal cases taken by Citizens UK and and other charities, rather than proactively by the British and French governments, Cooper said.

In her letter, Cooper called for child protection procedures to be immediately applied in the cases where the requests had been agreed, “when with each day that goes by these children and teenagers are at continued risk of abuse, sexual exploitation, trafficking, psychological trauma and disease in the Calais camp”.

Charities working in Calais have also identified a further 200 child refugees who do not have family anywhere in Europe and would be eligible for sanctuary in Britain under the Dubs amendment.

Child refugees at risk of sexual abuse and trafficking in government-run camps in Greece must also be offered sanctuary in Britain, Cooper said. An Observer investigation found children as young as seven had been sexually assaulted in official European refugee camps, according to volunteers working in the camp, including in a former Softex toilet roll factory on the outskirts of Thessaloniki.

The concerns over safety in the camps were raised by Cooper directly with the Home Office in her letter. “Given the concerns I and others have repeatedly raised about lone child refugees in camps and on the street in Greece, where the children’s homes are full and the authorities are struggling to cope, why has there not been urgent UK action to help?”

A Home Office spokesperson said that more than 30 children had been accepted for transfer to the UK under the Dubs amendment, the majority of whom had already arrived in the UK.

“We are consulting with local authorities to confirm available capacity and to ensure appropriate support systems are in place,” the Home Office said in a statement. “We are also in active discussions with the UNHCR and the Italian, Greek and French governments to strengthen and speed up mechanisms to identify, assess and transfer unaccompanied refugee children to the UK and ensure this in their best interests.

“This is in addition to supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children who arrive from Europe. Last year there were over 3,000 claims for asylum in the UK by unaccompanied children.”

The Home Office said it had made “significant progress in improving and speeding up the existing processes via Dublin especially since the beginning of the year” and added that as long as someone seeking asylum elsewhere in the EU can demonstrate they have close family members legally in the UK, the Home Office would take responsibility for their claim.