I. Summary and Key Recommendations

The [airport] transit zone is an improvement for foreigners because they can exercise their rights before they even enter French territory.

—Eric Besson, minister, Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Solidarity Development, May 11, 2009.

I said I didn’t want to return. The [police] woman told me ‘we will handcuff you...put you in the plane, and send you back to your country.’

—Ousmane R. who arrived alone at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport at the age of 16 in June 2007.

From January 2008 to July 2009 around 1,500 migrant children arrived without a care-giver or parent at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and were denied entry. Physically present within France’s geographical borders, but yet not “in” France according to French law, these children were detained by police in the so-called airport transit zone.

Some of these children were trafficked, some were fleeing persecution in their home countries, and some were arriving to join family members. But instead of receiving protection, they faced degrading treatment by police, detention with adults, little protection from traffickers, barriers to filing asylum, and a rapid screening system procedurally stacked against children being able to properly make a claim to stay in France. Around 30 percent were subsequently deported to their country of origin or to a country through which they had transited on their journey to France, regardless of whether they had family or any ties there, or continued their journey to an onward destination. The others were granted access to France.

The treatment of unaccompanied child migrants at Roissy Charles de Gaulle has significance beyond France. As France’s principal and Europe’s second largest airport, it serves 60 million passengers yearly, making it a main entry point into Europe’s borderless zone, the Schengen area. It counts more than half a million aircraft movements per year, connecting 470 destinations in 110 countries. The airport is also a major stopover point for long-haul flights crossing through Europe.

France, like any sovereign state, has a legitimate interest in controlling its borders and in screening persons who seek entry. However, these interests do not permit it to place children at risk of harm. France’s treatment of unaccompanied migrant children in airport transit zones violates its obligations under international law and should be immediately reformed.

Contrary to binding rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, and to opinions of United Nations bodies, the French government holds on to a legal fiction that the airport transit zone implies some kind of extra-territorial status. As a consequence, unaccompanied children held at the airport and denied entry to France are subject to a different legal regime than children “on French territory.” In practice, this means children in transit zones have far fewer rights because their status as migrants trumps their rights as children.

Children may face intimidating or even abusive behavior from some police officers when they arrive. Human Rights Watch documented cases in which police coerced children as young as six into signing papers they did not understand. Police routinely use handcuffs and strip-searches on children. Some children interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been kept for an entire day locked up at airport terminals, during which time the police restricted their access to the toilet.

At a time when children feel insecure and in need of trustworthy information and assistance, Human Rights Watch found that police would also routinely threaten children with deportation. In cases documented by Human Rights Watch, police deliberately refused some children their entitlement to the 24 hour protection from deportation provision and decided on children’s behalf that they wanted to depart “as soon as possible.” Police requested intrusive age exams for children who were self evidently under eighteen.

Transit zones remain the only place in France where children are detained jointly with adult strangers, and where men and women are held in one single facility. The airport detention center is poorly supervised and children have been sexually harassed by fellow detainees, have seriously harmed themselves, and suffered from anxiety and sleep disorders.

The system provides for ad hoc administrators to be assigned as guardians to assist and represent children in the transit zone. To date not all unaccompanied children are assigned an ad hoc administrator, although the government has pledged this will happen. But even this would not fill protection gaps as children may be deported without ever meeting their assigned ad hoc administrator. Enjoying minimal powers, ad hoc administrators can endure a cat and mouse game in which border police deport unaccompanied children swiftly before the guardians arrive at the airport, or withhold information that makes it impossible to assist the child. 

Children not represented by an ad hoc administrator or those who never meet their guardian cannot challenge the lawfulness of their detention because by law they are considered to lack the legal capacity to file such a claim. This puts children in an impossible and totally unfair situation.

Moreover, ad hoc administrators are inadequately trained and poorly paid for a task that is complex, stressful, and involves enormous responsibility. This creates significant risk that intervention by an ad hoc administrator will not always lead to the protection of a child’s interests and rights.

Child asylum seekers may also be prevented by border police from filing asylum claims. Those who successfully file a claim undergo interviews almost immediately after arrival and while in detention. At that point they may lack the required confidence, preparation, legal aid, and reflection time to know how to respond, or to understand what is going on and the implications that interviews have. Furthermore, children may still be subject to the influence of traffickers and smugglers. The environment of the interview blurs the boundary between the French Office for Refugees and border police—the children’s jailers—and further undermines children’s confidence and trust.

Children who apply for but are denied asylum may face obstacles to appealing if their ad hoc administrator is absent or fails to inform them about the right and deadline for an appeal. Human Rights Watch documented cases where the ad hoc administrator refused to approve appeals on the grounds that an appeal is not justified—something quite beyond an ad hoc administrator’s capacity or responsibility to assess.

Protection officers working for the French Office for Refugees are not specifically trained in adjudicating children’s claims, and criteria for whether a claim is granted are the same for children as for adults. Fast track asylum procedures are particularly inappropriate for children, who have lower thresholds for handling trauma and stress than adults. Children might be traumatized by the reasons for their flight in the first place—but then in addition they find themselves being confronted by intimidating  police behavior, detention and insufficient information and legal support in a situation where quick decisions are being made about their status. All of these factors combine to mean that children may not be able to convincingly or coherently articulate their claim, explain the reason for their flight or even understand what is happening to them, increasing the likelihood that legitimate claims may be denied. Human Rights Watch found two cases where negative decisions made under such circumstances were later overturned.

Trafficking victims are among those at risk of being held in airport transit zones and possibly deported. The French government argues that the transit zone offers protection for unaccompanied children and obstructs trafficking networks from operating on French soil. However, Human Rights Watch found the opposite to be true. Border police lack screening procedures to identify trafficking victims and have a track record of attempting to immediately deport them, with the risk of sending them back into the hands of criminal networks. Traffickers have even been able to visit and influence children in the airport detention center.

Other children may be harmed because by law and in practice they may be deported to a transit country where none of their family members are present or they may be returned to their home country without any guarantee for family reunification or safe care. Incredibly, police have attempted to do this with at least one unaccompanied child as young as five. 

Children who resist deportation risk facing criminal charges and further detention. Children have been punished with solitary confinement at the airport detention center and reports indicate that border police have threatened children, and in isolated instances resorted to physical violence, to ensure removal from France.

Action by the authorities at the airport transit zone takes place within a very short timeframe. A child might be subject to an entry refusal and removal within the course of only a few hours, while never leaving airport terminals. Such speedy procedures thwart meaningful assessment of the child’s situation and undermine any targeted intervention to protect them. The expediency of the procedures makes it less likely that a child will be able to challenge entry refusal and in practice seek protection from danger. It increases the risk that children are being returned to unsafe situations.

French and international human rights bodies, including the Children’s Ombudsman, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, and several French non-governmental organizations have long criticized the government’s treatment of unaccompanied migrant children at the airport, and called for an overhaul of the system. Some, such as the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, have demanded that all unaccompanied migrant children be admitted to French territory where their right to stay in the country can be adequately assessed.

In early 2009, Immigration minister Eric Besson appointed a working group to analyze the situation of unaccompanied migrant children, including those held in airport transit zones. While a welcome step, the working group’s conclusions had not been released at the time of writing. In May 2009 the minister gave mixed signals about his intentions, stating that it was “out of the question to query the existence of the airport transit zone” since that would encourage trafficking networks and facilitate children’s exploitation.

Human Rights Watch takes a different view. As long as the authorities only consider cosmetic changes and do not address the legal fiction of the transit zone, which lies at the core of current shortcomings, human rights violations by France are likely to persist.  

Key Recommendations to the French Government

• Abolish the arbitrary legal status of the airport transit zone for unaccompanied migrant children and admit all unaccompanied children arriving at the border to French territory where their protection needs, vulnerabilities, views, and best interests can be properly assessed and inform any decision-making about their future.
• In the interim, immediately suspend the deportation of unaccompanied migrant children to transit countries, and adopt formal procedures that ensure their safety upon return to their country of origin or when reunited with their care-giver in a third country. Prior to any return decision, assess whether return is in the child’s best interests, taking into account the risk of abuse or harm they may face after arrival.
• Immediately issue clear guidelines to border police that deportation cannot take place until the child has seen his or her ad hoc administrator and had an opportunity to consult with a lawyer. 
• Immediately refrain from detaining unaccompanied children with adults and girls with boys. As a general rule, unaccompanied migrant children should be placed in appropriate local authority care and not be detained. If children are to be exceptionally detained, they should be assisted by a lawyer and an ad hoc administrator in order to be able to challenge their detention.

Methodology and Scope

This report examines French authorities’ treatment of migrant children who arrive without parents or care givers at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris. Specifically, it focuses on children refused entry to France from the time they are held in the airport transit zone (zone d’attente) until they are granted access to enter France or are removed. This report does not discuss children’s treatment after they are granted permission to enter France or after their removal to their home country or to a third country.

Between April and July 2009, we interviewed a total of 19 unaccompanied migrant children, including six girls, who were held in an airport transit zone. One child was held at the transit zone of Paris Orly airport; the rest were held at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. Most children we spoke to were held in the transit zone between April 2008 and June 2009. Two children interviewed were held there in 2007 and one was held in 2006. Unaccompanied migrant children we interviewed were nationals of the following countries: Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Eritrea, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China, Lebanon, Brazil, Ivory Coast, Albania, Guinea-Conakry, Nigeria, and Comoros Islands. 

Two interviews were conducted over the phone, all others in person in private and confidential settings. Border police permitted us to speak to children held at the airport detention center in special rooms for visitors. Where necessary, interviews were conducted with the assistance of an interpreter. For five interviews, children’s ad hoc administrator or parents were present. We also monitored 55 court hearings of unaccompanied migrant children before the judge who reviews detention of children held at the airport transit zone. All names of children have been replaced by pseudonyms to protect their identity.

We interviewed 10 ad hoc administrators who represent children held at the airport transit zone. We assured them anonymity for any information provided for this report and therefore withhold their names. We met with government officials from the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development (hereafter Ministry of Immigration), Ministry of Justice, Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons, local Child Protection Services, and with airport border police at Roissy Charles de Gaulle. We also spoke with representatives of the judiciary, including a liberty and detention judge, the public prosecutor, and a children’s judge.

Human Rights Watch did not aim to determine how children we interviewed arrived in France because some were likely still under the influence of smugglers. We also did not seek to assess their motives to migrate or whether they had a claim for asylum. Instead, we assessed to what extent French authorities’ treatment of unaccompanied migrant children after their arrival was in conformity with its human rights obligations. That assessment included whether children were granted their right to seek asylum and have their claim examined in a fair and efficient manner.

In line with international instruments and French law, in this report the term “child” refers to a person under the age of 18.[1] For the purpose of this report, we use the term “unaccompanied child” to describe both unaccompanied and separated children as defined by the Committee on the Rights of the Child:

“Unaccompanied children” are children, as defined in article 1 of the Convention, who have been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so. “Separated children” are children, as defined in article 1 of the Convention, who have been separated from both parents, or from their previous legal or customary primary caregiver, but not necessarily from other relatives. These may, therefore, include children accompanied by other adult family members.[2]