Ms. Isabel Quesada
Director
Department of Social Welfare and Health
Carlos Ramirez De Arellano Street, 10
Melilla
Spain

Fax: +952 678 080

Dear Director,

I am writing to express my concern about abuses of children in Melilla described in the Human Rights Watch report, Nowhere to Turn: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco. The report documents cases of children under the care of your department who were beaten or ill-treated by Spanish police, abused by staff and other children in residential centers, subjected to arbitrary age determination procedures, denied health, education, and other benefits guaranteed them in Spanish law, or summarily expelled to Morocco.

I urge you to take immediate action to ensure that all unaccompanied migrant children in Melilla have access to safe residential care supervised by trained staff, education, emergency services and other health care, and temporary residency documents, as required by Spanish and international law. The Department should provide children with information on their rights under Spanish and international law, including the right to apply for asylum, and permit representatives of humanitarian, legal support, religious, migrants’ and human rights groups to visit residential centers regularly to speak with children. No child should be removed from the Department’s care without legal justification, adequate notice to the child, and the opportunity for the child to be heard.

I look forward to receiving your reply, and thank you for your attention to this important human rights matter.

Sincerely,