Ms. Celia Villalobos
Minister of Health and Consumer Affairs
Paseo del Prado, 18-20
28071 Madrid
Spain

Fax: ++ 34 9 1429 3525

Dear Minister,

I am writing to express my concern about abuses of children in Ceuta and 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 unaccompanied migrant children who were denied rights following arbitrary age determination procedures, or denied access to emergency services and other health care, in violation of Spanish law. In Ceuta, clinics regularly denied these children emergency and preventive health care because residential center staff refused to accompany them to the clinics and the children lacked the INSALUD health cards they were entitled to because their legal guardian, the Department of Social Welfare, did not apply for them.

I urge you to ensure that unaccompanied migrant children are not denied access to emergency services and other health care, including adequate preventive and remedial medical care, and are issued valid health cards (tarjetas sanitarias). I also call on you to ensure that whenever Ministry of Health or INSALUD staff perform age assessments of unaccompanied migrant children, the method of age assessment conforms to the recommendations of the Separated Children in Europe program and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Guidelines.

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

Sincerely,