III. Context
1. The Phenomenon of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Spain and the Canary Islands
The phenomenon of unaccompanied children migrating to Spain manifested itself at the end of the 1990s and significantly increased after the turn of the millennium.6 Children have primarily arrived from Africa, especially from Morocco.7
In the Canary Islands, the arrival of unaccompanied children took place in two stages. The first stage includes children who have migrated to the Canary Islands since the late 1990s, predominantly from the south of Morocco, and mainly arriving to the eastern islands of Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. The second stage includes the very recent development of sub-Saharan African children arriving in the Canary Islands by boat from West Africa, mainly Senegal.
Motivations, migration routes, push factors, and profiles of Moroccan migrant children have been comparatively well researched and documented by both Spain- and Morocco-based research organizations.8 In contrast, there is much less understanding of the push factors and profiles of Senegalese and other sub-Saharan African children migrating to Spain. The 2006 United Nations (UN) Human Development Index ranks Senegal 156th out of 177 countries, putting the country near the bottom in terms of human development and marking it as one of the most difficult countries to live in worldwide. Senegal has an adult illiteracy rate of roughly 61 percent. Over 85 percent of the population lives on less than US$2 per day, and one in five children under the age of five is underweight. In 2004, 43 percent of the population was under the age of 15.9
Children interviewed by Human Rights Watch typically cited their families’ economic situation and the lack of opportunities as decisive factors behind their decision to migrate. With some notable exceptions, many children had attended school for only a few years before they started working. While some children had clear plans to either study or work in Spain, others pursued a childhood dream or followed the paths of their friends, brothers, or other relatives. Still others had fled war-torn countries in West Africa.
With one exception, children interviewed told Human Rights Watch that they themselves took the decision to migrate and generally sought their parents’ prior consent. Although research by Human Rights Watch in West Africa indicates that families incur substantial debts to pay for the boat trip, children interviewed for this report unanimously told Human Rights Watch that the money for the trip had been earned by family members or sent by relatives from abroad. Although a majority of children and families paid substantial amounts of money for the sea passage, Human Rights Watch found no indication that the boys we interviewed had been trafficked as that term is used in international law.10
Human Rights Watch’s findings rebut the stereotype that it is primarily street children who migrate from Morocco to Spain. Moroccan children unanimously reported that they lived with their families in their home country, although a large number talked about difficulties within their families resulting from economic pressure, divorce, or the death of a parent.
In interviews with Human Rights Watch, Canary Islands authorities, including child protection representatives, consistently also stereotyped children into negative and positive categories once they were in their care. Moroccan children were categorized as “difficult,” “disruptive,” “not committed to work or study,” “unwilling to accept female staff,” “from broken families,” “living in the streets,” “conflict-prone,” and only “interested in making their living somehow.” They were implicitly considered responsible for a variety of problems within residential centers.
In contrast, sub-Saharan African children were described as “good,” “committed to their studies,” “willing to integrate,” “not disruptive,” and “interested in working and getting on.” These stereotypes were echoed by staff who worked in residential centers and were directly tasked with these children’s care.
One center staff member with long-standing experience of working with Moroccan children clarified:
The stereotype of Moroccan children that is being portrayed is not justified. A small minority might have been living in the streets indeed, but the vast majority of them come from intact family structures. The problems in the centers exist because of the conditions and environment in these centers. If you put 20 Spanish children into such conditions, you would have exactly the same problems.11
2. Types of Residential Centers
The Canary Islands autonomous community has set up separate structures to take unaccompanied migrant children into care.12 Foreign children are placed only in institutions, rather than with foster families. Authorities claim that families are either “unwilling to take [unaccompanied migrant] children” or that “[these] children are not used to living in family structures.”13
Residential structures for unaccompanied migrant children that existed prior to the emergency response to the recent influx, and continue to operate, consist of long-term, small-scale, shared housing facilities for up to 12 children, known as CAMEs (centros de acogida para menores extranjeros). CAMEs are typically located within or close to residential areas. They are complemented by facilities for immediate reception, so-called CAIs (centros de acogida inmediata) where children can be placed at short notice and for a maximum of 30 days. The maximum number of children in CAIs is limited to 20.14 The Canary Islands offers a total of 250 places in CAMEs and CAIs and has defined its capacity ceiling for foreign children in care in all residential centers to be at 250-300 places. The head of the Child Protection Directorate told us that the capacity ceiling was part of an agreement with the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. However, a ministry representative denied that such an agreement existed and affirmed the capacity ceiling was a “unilateral declaration” on the part of the Canary Islands.15
The Child Protection Directorate (Dirección General de Protección del Menor y de la Familia) assumes guardianship (tutela) of unaccompanied children and has overall supervisory responsibility for all residential centers. The cabildos (island governments) are responsible for the management of CAMEs and CAIs, but typically contract nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or associations to run them.16
Responding to what it described as an exceptional situation of unaccompanied children arriving on its shores in numbers beyond the capacity of existing care facilities, the Canary Islands Child Protection Directorate opened a total of four special emergency centers (Dispositivo de emergencia de atención de los menores extranjeros no acompañados en Canarias – DEAMENAC) from March 2006. Three of the four emergency centers are large-scale facilities that accommodate more than 75 children each.17 These centers are converted makeshift facilities located in isolated areas distant from residential neighborhoods and municipal services. Designed as a temporary solution to cope with the number of arrivals, they have de facto become permanent. No strategy at either the regional or national level exists to date to replace them. On the contrary, Canary Islands authorities are considering establishing a new emergency center on Lanzarote.18
Resistance by the local population to the presence of centers for migrant children is reportedly an obstacle in the opening of new CAMEs. Although the Child Protection Directorate reported that there are “very few incidents of xenophobia or racism,” this is contrary to the experience on both Fuerteventura and Lanzarote islands.19 As one emergency worker explained, “If there are no places available in CAMEs, children are forced to stay here [in the CAI] for unlimited time. It’s very difficult to open a new center. The population doesn’t want residential centers for children, neither for nationals nor for foreign children—much less for foreign children.”20
The establishment of emergency centers is reportedly regulated through an order issued by the social affairs department in 2006, but Canary Islands authorities were not able to tell us whether the order sets forth minimum standards for such centers. Despite repeated requests, none of the Canary Islands officials interviewed by Human Rights Watch was able to provide us with a copy of the order.21
Emergency centers are directly managed by the Child Protection Directorate, but it has contracted the NGO Asociación Solidaria Mundo Nuevo (Mundo Nuevo) to run them. Mundo Nuevo faced considerable challenges in taking on this contract. Although the organization had previous experience in running centers for children in care, it had no previous experience of working with foreign children whose situation brings a range of legal issues to be dealt with. It had to almost double its staff in a very short time and currently has 200 staff on its payroll working with foreign children.22
The separation of foreign children from their Spanish counterparts in long-term residential care is a significant obstacle to their successful integration and increases their segregation and vulnerability.23 Studies have consistently established the negative impact of institutionalization of children at risk and the existence of high rates of violence in large-scale residential care. As a consequence, countries with a predominant use of large-scale institutions have deliberately moved away from this kind of care.24
3. Statistics and Figures
National figures
The latest available national figures on unaccompanied migrant children in Spain date from 2004.25 According to these figures from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales), 9,117 unaccompanied foreign children were taken into care that year, most of them in Andalucia, Valencia, Madrid, and Catalunya. Out of these children, only about 2,000 remained in care by the end of 2004.26
Contradicting these figures, the national ombudsperson reports much lower numbers of unaccompanied migrant children in the care of Spanish authorities in 2004. He reports that only 1,873 migrant children were taken into care countrywide in 2004, relying on data from the Ministry of Interior’s Commissariat on Foreigners and Documentation (Comisaría General de Extranjería y Documentación).27
The discrepancy is the result of the lack of uniform recording of data on unaccompanied migrant children. Although a law enacted in 2005 requires the creation within the Police Directorate of a national registry on unaccompanied migrant children, this has not yet happened.28 Representatives from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs told Human Rights Watch in February 2007 that they were “working with the Police to activate a system to register children based on their fingerprints.”29
Canary Islands figures
A report by the Canary Islands Parliament documents that until 2005, more than 90 percent of unaccompanied migrant children originated from Morocco, particularly from the country’s south. From January 2006 onwards, the number of sub-Saharan African children, mainly arriving from Mali and Senegal, increased significantly.30
Source: Parliament of the Canary Islands Official Bulletin , No. 125, March 28, 2007, p. 26. http://www.parcan.es/pub/bop/6L/2007/125/bo125.pdf (accessed April 30, 2007).
The same report also gives the average number of unaccompanied children in the protection system for the past seven years. One hundred children were in the Canary Islands protection system in 2000. That figure gradually increased and reached its first peak with 256 children in 2003. It leveled to around 200 children for 2004 and 2005. For 2006, the number of unaccompanied children in the protection system reportedly rose from a low of just under 250 in January to a high of almost 850 in October.31
Children are distributed among the Canary Islands according to an island’s size and population. The majority of residential centers are found on the two biggest islands, Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Table 1: Distribution of Children per Island and Type of Center (as of February 5, 2007)32
| Name of Island | Number of places per Island (CAMEs and CAIs) | Percentage of total places | Actual number of children | Difference |
| Gran Canaria | 82 | 32.8 | 80 | -2 |
| Tenerife | 75 | 29.8 | 99 | 25 [sic.] |
| Lanzarote | 27 | 10.9 | 42 | 15 |
| Fuerteventura | 24 | 9.6 | 25 | 1 |
| La Palma | 22 | 8.9 | 18 | -4 |
| Gomera | 16 | 6.3 | 16 | 0 |
| Hierro | 4 | 1.7 | 6 | 2 |
| Total number in CAMEs and CAIs | 250 | 100 | 286 | |
| DEAMENAC- Agüimes or ‘Arinaga’ | 139 | |||
| DEAMENAC-Arucas | 24 | |||
| DEAMENAC-Tegueste | 74 | |||
| DEAMENAC-La Esperanza | 166 | |||
| Total number in DEAMENACs | 403 | |||
| Total number of unaccompanied children in residential centers | 689 | |||
| Unaccompanied children in juvenile detention facilities | 50 | |||
| Total number of foreign unaccompanied children under public guardianship | 739 | |||
| Children transferred to other autonomous communities under guardianship of the Canary Islands (up to February 5) | 32 | |||
| Children to be transferred this week (February 5) to other autonomous communities under guardianship of the Canary Islands | 8 | |||
| Total number of arrivals in 2006 | 931 | |||
| Total number of arrivals in 2007 (up to February 5, 2007) | 39 | |||
| Children transferred to other Autonomous Communities in 2006 | 231 | |||
| Children transferred to other Autonomous Communities in 2007 (up to February 5, 2007) | 20 | |||
Source: Parliament of the Canary Islands Official Bulletin, No. 125, March 28, 2007, p. 25.
These numbers may not include children who have escaped from residential centers but legally remain under the guardianship of Spanish protection authorities. In January 2007 the Child Protection Directorate told Human Rights Watch that there were about 100 such children.33
Graph 2: Countries of Origin
| Nationality | TOTAL |
| Morocco | 290 |
| Mauritania | 12 |
| Senegal | 453 |
| Mali | 115 |
| Rest of sub-Saharan Africa | 61 |
| TOTAL | 931 |
Source:Parliament of the Canaries Official Bulletin, No. 125, March 28, 2007, p. 24.
4. Authority and Responsibility at the Spanish National and Canary Islands levels
In contrast to adult migrants, unaccompanied migrant children are entitled to special state protection and assistance, and they enjoy the guarantees set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.34 This is irrespective of whether children are found to qualify for asylum or other forms of international protection flowing from a risk to their security and well-being in their country of origin (access to asylum for unaccompanied migrant children is discussed in Section V.3, below).
Spain is a highly decentralized state organized territorially into 17 autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas) and the two autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas) of Ceuta and Melilla. Autonomous communities are subdivided into a total of 50 provinces. The Canary Islands were granted the status of an autonomous community in 1982.35 The Canary Islands are divided into two provinces, Las Palmas, which includes Gran Canaria and islands to the east, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which includes Tenerife and islands to the west. Each island has its own local government (cabildo).
The Canary Islands autonomous community is in charge of social affairs and services, while the competence over migration policy, repatriation procedures, status of noncitizens, and applications for asylum remains with the central government.36 The autonomous community is responsible for child protection and care of all children on its territory and has adopted relevant legislation that is subordinate to national law.37 The central government is represented in the Canary Islands through a delegate (delegado del Gobierno) and through a subdelegate (subdelegado del Gobierno) in each of the two provincial capitals, Las Palmas and Santa Cruz de Tenerife.38
At the national level, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs coordinates policies and practice on unaccompanied migrant children within the central administration and with the various autonomous communities and cities through three mechanisms:39
1) The State Secretariat for Social Services, Family Affairs, and Disability (Secretaría de Estado de Servicios Sociales, Familias y Discapacidad) gathers every three months with the directors of all autonomous community child protection services. A working group on unaccompanied migrant children was recently created, consisting of the seven autonomous communities with the highest numbers of such children. This working group, in which the Canary Islands are represented, met for the first time at the end of January 2007.
2) These meetings at the director level are complemented by technical commissions that coordinate and harmonize child protection policies across the country.
3) The Childhood Observatory (Observatorio de Infancia) includes representatives from all autonomous communities and all relevant ministries as well as NGOs. The observatory established a working group on unaccompanied migrant children.40
The Office of the Prosecutor General(Ministerio Fiscal), through its provincial offices and its prosecutors for children (fiscales de menores) supervises administrative procedures affecting unaccompanied migrant children, the exercise of public guardianship, and conditions in residential centers. The Prosecutor’s Office is further mandated to oversee the independence of the courts. The Prosecutor General (Fiscal General del Estado) issues mandatory instructions for all prosecutors.41
Ombudspersons (defensor del pueblo) work at the national level as well as in each autonomous community. They oversee the state administration and report to the parliaments at the national or autonomous community level. They may receive and investigate individual complaints. The national ombudsperson is also entitled to challenge the constitutionality of an official act.42
Child Protection Directorate and cabildo representativesconsistently used vocabulary characteristic of a emergency when referring to the situation of unaccompanied children arriving on Canary Island shores in large numbers, speaking of an “avalanche” of children and the “flooding” of its protection system.43 The Canary Islands authorities called for support by the central government and for a demonstration of solidarity by other regions of Spain, with considerable success (see Section VIII.4, below). Several government officials in the Canaries furthermore asserted that the situation is in fact a matter for the European Union to deal with and not exclusively the responsibility of Spain or the Canary Islands.
6 Daniel Senovilla Hernández, “Situation and Treatment of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Europe: the Spanish Case,” Research on the Situation of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Spain for a Doctoral Thesis (“Situación y Tratamiento de los Menores Extranjeros no Acompañados en Europa: el Caso Español,” Informe de Investigación para Tesis Doctoral en Curso de Realización Relativo a la Situación de los Menores no Acompañados en España), 2006 (publication pending).
7 Rosa María Bravo Rodríguez, “Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Spain,” Council of Europe Regional Conference on Migration of Unaccompanied Minors: Acting in the Best Interest of the Child, October 27-28, 2005, MG-RCONF (2005) 11., pp. 4-6.
8 Mercedes Jiménez Álvarez, “Searching for One’s Life: Transnational Analysis of Migratory Processes of Unaccompanied Moroccan Children in Andalusia” (“Buscarse La Vida: Anális Transnacional de los Procesos Migratorios de los Menores Marroquíes no Acompañados en Andalucía”), 2003; Federación SOS Racismo, “Children Between Borders: Repatriations Without Safeguards and Abuses Against Moroccan Children” (“Menores en Las Fronteras: De los Retornos Efectuados Sin Garantías a Menores Marroquíes y de los Malos Tratos Sufridos”), 2004, http://www.mugak.eu/ef_etp_files/view/Informe%5fmenores%5fretornados%2epdf?revision%5fid=9202&package%5fid=9185 (accessed April 20, 2007); United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “A New Face of Migration: Unaccompanied Children” (“Nouveau Visage de la Migration : Les Mineurs non Accompagnés”), 2005; Naima Baba, “Unaccompanied Moroccan Children: What Reality for Return?” (“Mineurs Marocains non Accompagnés : Quelle Réalité pour le Retour ?”), MIREM Project, Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies, 2006; Human Rights Watch, Nowhere to Turn: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco, vol.14, no. 4(D), May 2002, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/spain-morocco/.
9 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2006 (New York: UNDP, 2006), http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf (accessed May 15, 2007), pp. 285–299. Other sub-Saharan African countries from which unaccompanied children come to the Canaries, such as Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and Mali, are even worse off. Ibid.
10 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, adopted 15 November, 2000, G.A. Res. 55/25, annex 2, U.N. Doc. A/RES/55/25 (2001), entered into force on December 25, 2003, ratified by Spain on March 1, 2002, art. 3:
(a) ‘Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;
[…]
(c) The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons” even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article.”
11 Human Rights Watch interview with center staff, January 2007 (name, exact date and location withheld).
12 The five unaccompanied migrant girls in the protection system as of January 2007 were placed in centers for Spanish children. Human Rights Watch interview with Gloria Gutiérrez González, Child Protection Directorate, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, January 15, 2007.
13 Ibid., and Human Rights Watch interview with Natividad Cano Pérez, counselor, department of social affairs, health, and immigration, cabildo Fuerteventura, Puerto de Rosario, January 24, 2007.
14 This type of residential system is regulated by: Decreto 40/2000, de 15 de marzo, por el que se aprueba el Reglamento de organización y funcionamiento de los centros de atención a menores en el ámbito de la Comunidad Autónoma Canaria.
15 Human Rights Watch interview with José Luís Arregui Sáez, director general, Child Protection Directorate, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, January 19, 2007, and with Estrella Rodríguez, director general on integration, State Secretariat for Immigration and Emigration, Madrid, February 23, 2007.
16 Decreto 159/1997, de 11 de julio, de transferencias de competencias de la Administración Pública de la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias a los Cabildos Insulares en materia de prestación de servicios especializados en cuestiones de prevención; de ejecución de las medidas de amparo que se establecen en la Ley 1/1997, de 7 de febrero, de Atención Integral a los Menores; y asesoramiento y cooperación técnica, jurídica y económica a las entidades municipales, de acuerdo con lo establecido en la legislación de régimen local. Every island has its own system and different organizations in charge of managing these centers. Standards and services from one center/island to another may differ considerably. The costs for a child in a CAME/CAI vary between €67 to €100 per day. The costs for a child in an emergency center are “about the same.” Human Rights Watch interviews with cabildo representatives, center staff, and the Child Protection Directorate, January 2007.
17 The emergency centers (DEAMENAC) as of February 2007 are: on Gran Canaria: Arucas and Agüimes/Arinaga; and on Tenerife: La Esperanza and Tegueste.
18 Human Rights Watch interview with José María Espino González, counselor, Department of Labor, Social Affairs and Immigration, cabildo Lanzarote, Arrecife, January 25, 2007, and with Gloria Gutiérrez González, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, January 31, 2007.
19 Human Rights Watch interview with José Luís Arregui Sáez, January 19, 2007. The former center of Llanos Pelados in Fuerteventura (see below, Section VIII.1) has been strongly criticized by national and international human rights organizations for several years. A serious obstacle in the opening of new facilities was the resistance by the local community. See Council of Europe, Report by Alvaro Gil-Robles on his visit to Spain, 10 – 19 March 2005, November 9, 2005, https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=927685&BackColorInternet=FEC65B&BackColorIntranet=FEC65B&BackColorLogged=FFC679#P411_113843 (accessed December 10, 2006), para. 114.
20 Human Rights Watch interview with center staff, January 2007 (name, exact date and location withheld).
21 Neither the Canary Islands ombudsperson nor the Prosecutor’s Office in Tenerife has a copy of this order, and Human Rights Watch was unable to obtain a copy from any of the other authorities who referred to it.
22 Human Rights Watch interviews with Juan José Dominguez Navarro, president, Asociación Solidaria Mundo Nuevo, Fuerteventura, January 23, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, January 27, 2007.
23 Bravo Rodríguez, “Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Spain,” p. 19: “In general it seems to be preferable in this phase [long-stay residential phase] to share general, standard facilities. Once these foreign minors have acquired certain basic skills to help them fend for themselves in our country, living with autochthonous children facilitates their integration, whereas housing them in specialized facilities tends to heighten their segregation.”
24 Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, World Report on Violence against Children (Geneva: United Nations, 2006), p. 183.
25 Bravo Rodríguez, “Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Spain,” p. 5. No figures on unaccompanied children are available from the ministry’s annual statistical report of 2005 and the monthly statistical bulletin of January 2007. State Secretariat for Immigration and Emigration, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, “Annual Immigration Statistics, 2005” (“Anuario Estadístico de Inmigración, 2005”) and “Stastical Immigration Bulletin” (“Boletín Estadístico de Extranjería e Inmigración”), No.11, January 2007, http://extranjeros.mtas.es/ (accessed March 3, 2007).
26 Bravo Rodríguez, “Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Spain,” p. 3.
27 Ombudsperson (Defensor del Pueblo), Report on Legal Assistance for Foreigners in Spain (Informe Sobre Asistencia Jurídica a Los Extranjeros en España) (Madrid: 2005), p. 460.
28 Real Decreto 2393/2004, de 30 de diciembre, por el que se aprueba el Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000, de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social, Ministerio de la Presidencia, 2004, art. 111.
29 “Se está trabajando con las unidades de policía para activar el registro de menores y hacer funcionar el sistema de registro por huellas dactilares.” Human Rights Watch interview with Amparo Marzal Martínez, director general for family and childhood, Alfonso Marina, general subdelegate for childhood, and Carmen Puyó, secretary of Childhood Observatory, Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, Madrid, February 22, 2007.
30 Parliament of the Canary Islands Official Bulletin (Boletín Oficial del Parlamento de Canarias), No. 125, March 28, 2007, http://www.parcan.es/pub/bop/6L/2007/125/bo125.pdf (accessed April 30, 2007), pp. 23-24.
31 The report describes the “average” number of children as 850 during 2006, but that characterization is not supported by the month-by-month breakdown reproduced from the same report in Graph 1, above. Ibid. p. 24.
32 We attempted to update these figures but were unable to replace them with more recent statistics.
33 Human Rights Watch interview with Gloria Gutiérrez González, January 15, 2007. There is generally little information on children who escape from the protection system in Spain. See Senovilla Hernández, “Situation and Treatment of Unaccompanied Foreign Children in Europe: the Spanish Case.”
34 CRC, art. 20: “A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State.” UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No.6, para. 12: “State obligations under the Convention apply to each child within the State’s territory and to all children subject to its jurisdiction (art.2)…. Moreover, State obligations under the Convention apply within the borders of a State, including with respect to those children who come under the State’s jurisdiction while attempting to enter the country’s territory. Therefore, the enjoyment of rights stipulated in the Convention is not limited to children who are citizens of a State party and must therefore, if not explicitly state otherwise in the Convention, also be available to all children – including asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children – irrespective of their nationality, immigration status or statelessness.”
35 Estatuto de Autonomía de Canarias, Ley Orgánica 10/1982, de 10 de agosto, as amended by Ley Orgánica 4/1996, de 30 de diciembre, art. 30(13-14). The Canary Islands are divided into two provinces, Las Palmas, which includes Gran Canaria and islands to the east, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which includes Tenerife and islands to the west. Each island has its own local government, which is called cabildo.
36 Constitución Española, arts. 148 -149; Ley 9/1987, de 28 de abril, de Servicios Sociales.
37 Relevant legislation includes: Ley 1/1997, de 7 de febrero, de Atención Integral a los Menores; Ley 9/1987, de 28 de abril, de Servicios Sociales; Decreto 187/1995, 20 julio, de Reestructuración de la Administración Pública de la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias; Decreto 159/1997, de 11 de julio, de transferencias de competencias de la Administración Pública de la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias a los Cabildos Insulares en materia de prestación de servicios especializados en cuestiones de prevención; de ejecución de las medidas de amparo que se establecen en la Ley 1/1997, de 7 de febrero, de Atención Integral a los Menores; y asesoramiento y cooperación técnica, jurídica y económica a las entidades municipales, de acuerdo con lo establecido en la legislación de régimen local; Decreto 54/1998, de 17 de abril, por el que se regulan las actuaciones de amparo de los menores en el ámbito de la Comunidad Autónoma de Canarias; Decreto 40/2000, de 15 de marzo, por el que se aprueba el reglamento de organización y funcionamiento de los centros de atención a menores en el ámbito de la Comunidad Autónoma Canaria. For an overview of the structure of the Canary Islands government see http://www.gobcan.es/organizacion/publico/organigrama-del-gobierno.jsf (accessed February 20, 2007).
38 Ley 6/1997, de 14 de abril, de Organización y Funcionamiento de la Administración General del Estado, arts. 22 and 29.
39 Human Rights Watch interview with Amparo Marzal, Alfonso Marina, and Carmen Puyó, February 22, 2007. For an overview of the structure of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, see http://www.mtas.es/extras/es/organigrama.htm (accessed February 12, 2007).
40 Spain established the Childhood Observatory in 1999 in response to a recommendation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The Observatory coordinates policy and practice within the central administration as well as with autonomous communities to ensure that all children on Spanish territory enjoy equal rights. Human Rights Watch interview with Carmen Puyó, February 22, 2007.
41 Within its provincial offices there may be several specialized sections. Some offices have child protection sections alongside a juvenile justice section (fiscalía de reforma). In other offices child protection responsibilities are assigned to a single prosecutor or are carried out by the civil section. Human Rights Watch interview with Joaquín Sánchez-Covisa, Supreme Court prosecutor (fiscal del Tribunal Supremo), coordinator on alien affairs (coordinador de extranjería), Office of the Prosecutor General, Madrid, February 21, 2007. The mandate of the Office of the Prosecutor with regard to unaccompanied children is spelled out in: Constitución Española, art.124; Ley 50/1981, de 30 de diciembre, por la que se regula el Estatuto Orgánico del Ministerio Fiscal; Código Civil, art. 172, 174 and 232 (article 174.(2) states that the Public Prosecutor shall verify, at least twice a year, the situation of the child under guardianship and shall promote protection measures deemed necessary); Ley Orgánica de Protección Jurídica del Menor 1/1996, de 15 de enero, art. 21; Ley Orgánica 4/2000, de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social, as amended by Ley Orgánica 8/2000, de 22 de diciembre, art. 35.(1)(2); Real Decreto 2393/2004, de 30 de diciembre, por el que se aprueba el Reglamento de la Ley Orgánica 4/2000, de 11 de enero, sobre derechos y libertades de los extranjeros en España y su integración social, art. 92.
42 Constitución Española, arts.54, 162; Ley Orgánica 3/1981, de 6 de abril, del Defensor del Pueblo.
43 Even so, other regions of Spain have reported higher numbers of arrivals in the past. See Bravo Rodríguez, “Reception of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors in Spain,” p. 3. For a description of the construct of an emergency and the Canary Islands’ influence on European Politics, see Sergio Carrera, The EU Border Management Strategy: FRONTEX and the Challenges of Irregular Immigration in the Canary Islands, Center for European Policy Studies, CEPS Working Document No. 261, March 2007, http://www.libertysecurity.org/IMG/pdf_The_EU_Border_Management_Strategy.pdf (accessed April 15, 2007).