When I met 14-year-old Hussein in Greece, he was clinging to a torn doll that he had named after his best friend back in Iraq. Hussein is one of approximately 1,000 unaccompanied children who entered Greece in 2008 without a parent or caregiver.
Hussein's story contained all the horrors of today's Iraq. His home had been bombed and his parents and siblings had all been killed or abducted. He went into hiding and finally fled from the country. Instead of finding the protection in Greece he desperately needed he was immediately detained. When he was released one month later, Greek officials left him outside the detention center with nothing but a paper ordering him to leave the country.
Hundreds of unaccompanied children in Greece share Hussein's fate: fleeing from war-torn countries in a desperate search for safety, they end up in a daily struggle for survival. They work in dangerous jobs, live in squalid and unsafe places, or simply beg and sleep in parks or cardboard shacks. Worse, Greek police officials often arrest and ill-treat these children, and the chances that Greece will recognise them as refugees are close to zero. Moreover, trafficking networks may try to exploit them.
Most of these children want to leave Greece for a safer place, but their hopes are short-lived. They are unable to leave Greece legally to seek refuge in another European country, unable to be recognised as refugees, and unable to return to their home countries. Those who do manage to leave for another European country may be summarily returned to Greece (as frequently happens with children who reach Italy). If they have claimed asylum in Greece, they also risk transfer back to Greece under the EU's Dublin II regulation, which stipulates that the first country an unaccompanied child applied for asylum is in charge of that application.
Greece flouts its most basic legal obligations when it comes to protecting these children, yet EU member states continue to pretend that every EU member lives up to its commitments. Greece has so far defied criticism from human rights institutions and international monitoring bodies. A strong signal from the EU and its members that they will not tolerate such practices and that they are ready to take their share of responsibility in this matter is long overdue.
EU member states should stop sending unaccompanied children back to Greece. The European Commission should take legal action against Greece and at the same time draft a comprehensive set of provisions that improve protection for unaccompanied children throughout the EU. It is Europe's responsibility to make sure that children like Hussein find the humane treatment Europe claims to stand for.
