VI. The Duty of Care

Care Arrangements

Safe accommodation is a fundamental measure for the protection of children from exploitation and abuse. According to international standards, a child deprived of his or her family environment is entitled to special protection and assistance from the state, and states parties are to ensure the provision of alternative care for such a child. Such care includes foster placement, adoption or, if necessary, placement in a suitable institution for children.[201] The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that states parties "render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities" and "ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of the children."[202]

In Greece there is an acute shortage of sufficient and adequate accommodation for unaccompanied migrant children, and no foster care system exists for them.[203] As of November 2008, the Ministry of Health funded or co-funded approximately 200 places for unaccompanied children in care institutions only. Many centers are managed by NGOs and funded partly or fully by the government.[204] Furthermore, it does not have short- or medium-term plans to make sufficient care places available. There is no center specifically for unaccompanied girls and the ministry does not plan to open a special center for them. Although Human Rights Watch noted that more than one dozen unaccompanied girls entered Greece within the course of a few weeks,[205] when we asked the Ministry about its plans to meet these girls' protection needs we were informed that a center would only be opened if the number of girls increased "dramatically."[206] Furthermore, no minimum standards exist for the functioning of care centers for unaccompanied children, and levels and quality of service differ considerably from one center to another.[207]

Although unaccompanied foreign children are not prohibited by law from entering care centers designated for Greek children, in practice, they may be barred from gaining access, or centers do not have adequate resources to care for foreign children.[208] The juvenile prosecutor in Athens told us that if she called such a center to refer a foreign child, "they ask whether the child is HIV positive or has a criminal record. It's very difficult to place a child in those centers…. The Ministry of Health is not at the frontline.... it doesn't really care and I'm the person at the frontline. That is why we try to push NGOs to find shelters."[209]

With the exception of one large-scale center on Lesvos Island that offers 100 places for unaccompanied children irrespective of their asylum status, it is very difficult for unaccompanied children who have not asked for asylum to access other state-sponsored accommodation.[210] Maria Kaldani from the NGO Arsis explained to us: "As an unaccompanied child you don't have regular status. If a child has not asked for asylum we can't do anything for the child. The status of illegality overrules any other status…. The shelter would ask whether the child speaks Greek or has a passport. They would say the child needs to have a paper."[211]

Although the Greek authorities claim that they make sure unaccompanied children safely reach a care center after release from detention, the reality is the opposite.[212] A Ministry of Interior circular specifies that in case an unaccompanied child makes an asylum application, the police, in cooperation with the competent services of the Ministry of Health, shall ensure that accommodation is provided for the child and is adequate to protect the child from exploitation and trafficking.[213] But in fact even those who have applied for asylum are not always able to access care places because the number of care placements are insufficient and because the referral system does not function effectively.

GCR operated a Ministry of Health funded program to provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers, including unaccompanied children, in hotels until a permanent place in a reception center became available. The general lack of permanent reception places resulted in prolonged stay of asylum seekers in these hotels, and by mid July 2008 funds were used up and the program was closed.[214]

Referral

The lack of sufficient care places appears to be the single most important obstacle that prevents authorities from referring unaccompanied children to safe accommodation. One prosecutor said: "I can't find a foster placement, not even for a Greek child."[215] The Athens prosecutor similarly told us that "right now there are very few shelters for unaccompanied children," adding that it was the responsibility of NGOs to find such places.[216] In a similar statement, the NGO Arsis informed us: "the Ministry of Health says: 'if you find a shelter I give the order to send the child.'"[217]

In the Evros region and in Athens, an unaccompanied child is released from detention with a deportation order but no further assistance. Ali N.'s account of his release from Petrou Ralli detention center in Athens is typical of what children told us: "When I was released I got no information. I was told to disappear. I was accompanied up to the gate, then they said 'leave'…. After I was released I spent the first night at Omonia."[218] In most cases, children are left to their own devices the day they are released from detention.[219]

The Greek Council for Refugees told Human Rights Watch that care places are often not immediately available, even for children and families: "sometimes, it takes between one and three months to get accommodation. Children and families are treated as a priority."[220] Once a place is found the permission to finally send a child to the location also takes time-time during which a child is left without accommodation: "we used to contact an NGO directly, transfer the child and inform the Ministry of Health afterwards. Now we have to inform the Ministry of Health which informs the Ministry of Interior and only then the child can be transferred," Human Rights Watch was told.[221]

Since July 2008, unaccompanied children who arrive on Lesvos and Samos Islands are referred to a newly renovated former sanatorium on Lesvos Island that offers care places for 100 unaccompanied children. While the status of this center remains unclear, it appears from its set-up that it should function as a transit center rather than a place for long-term accommodation. In a very isolated location and with a capacity for 100 children, it is ill-designed to offer unaccompanied children long-term care which allows real opportunity for social, educational, and economic integration.

In fact, a high number of children who had been referred to this center gradually absconded from it.[222] While not in a position to set out the individual circumstances that caused particular children to leave, important factors that contribute to children absconding from care centers include the fact that unaccompanied children who do not file an asylum application remain without regular status, that no minimum standards govern the operation of centers, and that large scale and isolated centers are not conducive to a child's integration and may increase some children's vulnerabilities. These are priority issues that need to be addressed by the government.

A positive example was the referral procedure for unaccompanied children in the port town of Patras by the Hellenic Red Cross. Unaccompanied children referred to the Red Cross by police and port police were informed about their right to seek asylum and the option of going to a care center.[223] If the program, including number of care places, had been extended to include all unaccompanied children, such a referral procedure would be an example of good practice. Human Rights Watch, however, learned at the end of August 2008 that the program was discontinued as the government did not step in when the EU funding was terminated.[224]

Planning and Financing of Care Placements

The Ministry of Health's plans for care placements do not extend beyond 2008 and they are dependent on funding from the European Commission's Refugee Fund.[225] The Ministry was unable to specify the exact number of care placements it was going to open in the coming two to five years.[226] The Ministry provides funding for care centers in Greece on a one-year basis only, in some cases for even shorter periods.[227] Such short funding cycles pose a real difficulty for entities in charge of centers to design their services and interventions according to children's needs well in advance.

Two crises led to the creation of care placements by the Ministry of Health. Both situations ensued after prosecutors, who acted as children's guardians, ordered the confinement of around 70 unaccompanied children on Leros Island, and of 100 unaccompanied children in the detention center of Lesvos Island, until care arrangements were found. Children in both instances staged a hunger strike to protest overcrowding and poor conditions; children detained on Lesvos Island threatened to kill themselves.[228]

The deputy Ministry of Health was dispatched to Leros Island after local human rights activists attracted the media and he ordered the transfer of all children to Athens initially, where they underwent an age assessment and had asylum applications processed (see chapter II on age assessments). Those determined to be children were transferred to care centers.[229] With regards to the approximately 100 unaccompanied children who were detained on Lesvos Island, the Ministry of Health opened a newly-renovated sanatorium, which continues to operate today.[230]

In early 2008, the Ministry of Health in cooperation with the Hellenic Red Cross, referred 101 unaccompanied children who were staying at the settlement in Patras to hotel rooms in advance of a 10-day period of severe cold. Among those, 60 decided to file asylum applications and were referred to care centers around the country.[231]

Accommodation outside Care Placements

Children outside state-funded care work to pay for their accommodation and often live in conditions that are overcrowded, unhygienic, and a risk for their health. Many informal "hotels" exist in the center of Athens where immigrants and asylum seekers, including unaccompanied children, find accommodation. These "hotels" are typically large and decrepit buildings where spots to sleep on the floor are rented out by private landlords for three to five Euros per night.

Children who stayed in such accommodation told Human Rights Watch about contracting skin diseases and experiencing very poor hygiene. Musa M., who was 16 years old at the time he arrived in Greece, stayed for almost a week in such a "hotel": "The hotel was very dirty. We were seven or eight persons in one room. It was about 15 m2. I slept on the floor. It was difficult for me there. It was very dirty. We borrowed some money from friends and ate outside. I paid three Euros per night."[232]

Up to 250 unaccompanied children reside in squalid conditions in a slum settlement in Patras. The NGO Médecins sans Frontières started a medical assistance program there in mid-May 2008. According to the organization, the most common pathologies among camp residents are skin diseases (scabies and skin infections), followed by respiratory tract infections and diarrhea.[233] Similarly, the NGO Doctors of the World noticed an increase in skin diseases among migrants in Greece, which they attribute to the squalid and overcrowded living conditions in Athens, especially in informal "hotels."[234]

Fifteen-year-old Aktar P. told us he was recruited from Athens and transferred to a plantation to work during the orange harvest (see also chapter VII on child labor). At that time, he did not have permanent accommodation anywhere. After his work was terminated and he had no place to go, he put up a cardboard hut with friends and stayed there for two weeks during the winter:

We put up some wooden boards and covered them with plastic. I slept with six to seven other persons. We were jobless and didn't have to pay for that. There was no work so we moved to this tent because it was for free.… We took pieces of wood from the garbage and put it on the soil. It was in an agricultural area and sometimes we took cauliflowers from the field. We had [a kind of] heater and used wood. It was very cold. During the night when we slept it got so cold and when it rained it rained inside. When it rained we had to constantly move because it was raining inside so we couldn't sleep.[235]

Several children told Human Rights Watch that they spent a few days sleeping in a public park until they found accommodation-typically by trusting in strangers who approached them with an offer for a place to stay. Fifteen-year-old Adisa P. from Nigeria had applied for asylum but the police had not referred him to a care center. He told us that he waited for accommodation an NGO promised to arrange for him and survived in the meantime on begging and sleeping in public parks in Athens:

I still don't have a place for me to live. The lawyers gave me an appointment to have a place to live. Now I sleep out on the streets. I don't live anywhere. I have cold to my body. I don't feel safe. I walk around to after 1am or 2am. Then I find a park to sleep in.[236]

The majority of unaccompanied children interviewed by Human Rights Watch were staying with adults in shared housing and paid for that place with their earnings from work. Such housing is not necessarily safe for children and children without income find themselves in a very vulnerable position and at risk of losing their place to stay. Fifteen-year-old Ahmad R. told us that he had no more money and paid for his accommodation through domestic work: "I work inside the house. I clean the house and wash the dishes. I always do this work…. I don't feel free. I don't know the language. I'm underage and this country does not give us good documents. I don't have a future. I don't agree with this situation."[237]

In at least one case, unaccompanied children not provided with care after release from detention have fallen into the hands of criminal gangs. Noorzai A., 18 years old at the time, told us how he, jointly with his eight-year-old brother and three other boys were abducted by a criminal gang after release from detention in Volos in late 2006. The gang locked the boys up, severely ill-treated them and blackmailed their relatives to pay ransom (their case is also discussed in chapter II).[238]

Legal Standards

The Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly has criticized the practice of detaining children and recommends they be placed in adequate care and reception structures instead.[239] The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protect children from inhuman or degrading treatment.[240] The European Court of Human Rights, in applying Article 3 of the ECHR which sets out the prohibition on such treatment, held that this protection entails a positive obligation on states to provide children with adequate protection against such treatment. In the case of Z and Others v. the United Kingdom, the court ruled against the UK government's social service system because it failed to protect children from serious, long-term neglect and abuse.[241] The European Commission of Human Rights, when it considered the admissibility of this case, specified that the protection of children who "by reason of their age and vulnerability are not capable of protecting themselves," may imply a positive obligation on authorities to take preventive measures to protect a child who is at risk from another individual.[242]

Greece fails to take the minimum precautions to protect unaccompanied children as required by article 3 of the ECHR. There are insufficient care placements available, children experience delays in accessing care and not all existing places are accessible for children who have not filed an asylum application. Children are furthermore released from state custody without any referral to accommodation and with no attempt by state authorities to adequately protect the child from harm, violence, and exploitation.