VII. Recommendations

To the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Solidarity Development

• 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.
• Adopt formal guidelines and screening to identify trafficking victims at the border and ensure victims’ access to protection, including protection from removal. Train airport border police to apply these guidelines and provide assistance through specialized personnel present at the airport. Ensure that all ad hoc administrators are informed and provided contact details of any visitor meeting with a child detained at the airport. Unaccompanied migrant children identified as possible trafficking victims should be referred to specially designed and safe accommodation away from Paris.
• Provide all persons at the border with written and oral information about their rights, including their right to seek asylum, and in a language they understand.
• Support legislative change to abolish the fast track asylum procedures for unaccompanied children and to automatically grant all asylum-seeking children permission to enter France to file a claim under regular asylum procedures.
• Ensure prompt presence of ad hoc administrators at the airport to give effect to children’s exercise of their rights immediately after identification. A demonstrable knowledge of the rights of migrant and asylum seeking children should be an essential criterion for their appointment. Support legislative change to professionalize ad hoc administrators’ service and to strengthen their mandate to grant them access to all relevant information and the authority to safeguard the child’s best interests and protection needs at all times, including in border police decisions.
• Assign each unaccompanied child an ad hoc administrator who can promptly be present at the airport immediately upon identifying the child and who represents the child throughout his or her detention in the transit zone. Refrain from questioning the child until the ad hoc administrator is present.
• Ensure ad hoc administrators are given unimpeded access to all police documents relevant for the exercise of their mandate and full access to children held in hotels, solitary confinement, police custody, and airport terminals.
• In addition to representation by ad hoc administrators, ensure the prompt presence of state-sponsored lawyers in the airport transit zone so that children can access their entitlement to legal assistance free of charge as soon as possible after their arrival and are able to challenge administrative and judicial decisions.
• Adopt age assessment procedures that do not exclusively rely on physical examinations but also take into account the child’s maturity and life history, in line with recommendations by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. These procedures should provide for effective mechanisms to challenge flawed assessments and require prior information about and consent for the exam from the child and ad hoc administrator. Adopt guidelines to prevent age examinations from being performed in obviously unnecessary circumstances and to prevent their being conducted in a degrading manner.

To the Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport Border Police

• Refrain from deporting children before their ad hoc administrators arrive at the airport and grant them access to all children held at airport terminals, including those who are held while transiting through Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. Refrain from screening, questioning, interviewing, and from requesting age exams for unaccompanied children without their ad hoc administrator present.
• Always grant all unaccompanied children their right to a jour franc, the 24-hour protection from removal.
• Immediately put an end to any attempts by officer to threaten children with deportation after their arrival and treat all children with dignity and in a way that is adapted to their age and maturity.
• Put an end to the practice of officers seeking to push children to sign documents they do not understand. Ensure children are fully aware of the implications of administrative decisions and that their ad hoc administrator is present when they are to sign documents.
• Put an end to the any officers intimidating unaccompanied children through restraint measures such as hand-cuffs or extensive strip-searches. Use such measures only in justified instances and in a proportionate manner.
• In cooperation with ad hoc administrators, provide written materials about trafficking and exploitation risks to all unaccompanied migrant children who arrive at the airport. Such information should include addresses, maps, and phone numbers of organizations and services where they may seek help.
• Provide ad hoc administrators access to all relevant information, and grant them unimpeded access to children they represent, no matter where they are held.
• Refrain from detaining children in solitary confinement and from initiating criminal charges against those who resist deportation.
• Refrain from demanding age assessments for children who are clearly underage. In cases of doubt and when there is a possibility that an individual is a child, he or she should be treated as such.

To the French Office for Refugees (OFPRA)

• In cooperation with specialized organizations, train all protection officers on interviewing children, on adjudicating their claims, and on child-specific forms of persecution. Include specific training on the possible impact of trauma, abuse, stress, detention, and anxiety on children’s stories.
• Support legislative changes to abolish the fast track procedure for unaccompanied migrant children at the border and to consider asylum claims by unaccompanied migrant children under the regular asylum procedure. Refrain from interviewing children by phone.

To the French Red Cross

• Immediately stop any efforts to block lawyers from appealing detention or negative asylum decisions on behalf of children.
• In case of rejected asylum decisions, ensure that all asylum seeking children receive information about their right to file an appeal and facilitate their making an appeal if they wish to file one.
• Adopt clear procedures to ensure that ad hoc administrators understand their duty to ensure access to protection for migrant children whose interests they represent.
• Support ad hoc administrators in filing appeals on behalf of children, including by ensuring sufficient support and resources to take on additional tasks when faced with tight deadlines.
• Adopt standard procedures and provide clear guidance to all ad hoc administrators on how to proceed with child victims of trafficking.

To the French Red Cross and Famille Assistance

• In cooperation with specialized organizations, train all ad hoc administrators about children’s entitlements under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments and instruct them to comply with these provisions in all their actions. Such training should include in-depth information about guidelines and binding standards governing the return of unaccompanied migrant children and on unaccompanied children’s entitlements to special care and protection. In addition, provide clear guidelines to all ad hoc administrators on how to apply binding standards and good practice in their work as guardians for unaccompanied migrant children.
• Jointly with the UNHCR and other specialized organizations, provide further training for all ad hoc administrators on asylum and subsidiary protection rights.
• Systematically file requests for legal aid for all unaccompanied migrant children held at the airport transit zone. Coordinate with and assist lawyers in filing appeals on behalf of children.

To the Children’s Judge and the Public Prosecutor

• Use your protection mandate in accordance with unaccompanied children’s entitlements under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the European Convention on Human Rights. In particular, give due consideration to unaccompanied children’s right to special protection and assistance and to the risk they face in case of deportation.
• Periodically review ad hoc administrators’ exercise of their mandate. Scrutinize and question instances in which ad hoc administrators have rejected legal intervention on behalf of unaccompanied migrant children.

To the European Commission

• Present concrete proposals for strengthening the protection of unaccompanied children in the upcoming revision of European Union asylum directives that guarantee appointed guardians the power to represent the child’s best interests and safeguard the child’s protection needs; that establish clear qualification criteria for guardians who represent unaccompanied children, which should include demonstrated expertise about the rights of children, migrants, and asylum seekers; and that, in addition to a guardian, include the appointment of a qualified lawyer free of charge for unaccompanied children subject to administrative or judicial procedures.

To the Council of the European Union

• Strengthen the protection of unaccompanied children in the upcoming revision of asylum directives by ensuring that all provisions for unaccompanied children are in line with international human rights law applicable in EU member states.
• Pursue a rights based approach in all EU action to the situation of unaccompanied migrant children and ensure that these children are first and foremost treated as children with their rights and protection needs given priority in all migration policies.