Poland: Help for refugee children and their families
Since 2021 there has been a dramatic humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarussian border: refugees, including many children and families, are pushed back by violence by Polish and Belarusian border officials and prevented asylum applications.
These illegal rejections ("pushbacks") violate international law. The arbitrariness and violence that are exposed to people there leave deep traces of body and soul, especially in children and young people. In order to escape this violence, the children and adolescents hide in the forests close to the border for months. There they suffer from hunger, thirst and extreme temperatures - in summer heat, in winter up to minus 20 degrees. Many are seriously injured in the attempt to overcome the border fence with barbed wire and five meters high.
Nobody escapes without need
People who take out such extreme strain for their escape and expose themselves to life can only do this for profound and very serious reasons. Most come from crisis countries such as Afghanistan, Syria or Somalia, where war, violence and oppression prevail. Many children and adolescents also flee to escape or forced marriage. All underage refugees have the right to asylum, but on the Polish-Belarusian border, this right is disregarded and encountered by force.
Procedure instead of protection
Many refugees who make it across the border from Belarus to Poland will initially be in custody. Also a lot of minors - because they are classified as adults without a precise exam. They are accommodated in so -called "Guarded Centers for Foreigners": these camps of the same prisons. The conditions under which children and adolescents are often held alone or with their family for months are inhumane: many young people report severe abuse and humiliations to which they were exposed.
Help is limitless
In the midst of the dark and violent reality on the Polish-Belarussian border, our partner organizations SIP and EASSA are a bright spot. Employees receive calls for help via messenger services or from a control center with an international emergency number that forwards calls to refugee people. The specialists from E nchaena immediately rush to those seeking help and distribute sleeping bags, warm clothes, thermos jugs with hot soup and battery packs for cell phones. In the event of injuries or illnesses, they provide urgently needed primary care. And they are at the side of the refugees to help them with the asylum application. These brave helpers are tirelessly fighting for the children and adolescents to offer hope and support in their worst need.
Interview with our expert Teresa Wilmes
What impressions did you bring from your last visit in July?
The mood was noticeably tense. Since June, the Polish government has built a restricted zone along the border in which organizations cannot provide any help. Our partners feel that hatred increases. Exchange for helpers increase, and some were threatened by a right citizen militia with the weapon. That is precisely why the tireless efforts of nervous - and their sad, but also beautiful stories, touch me: about children who can no longer play in the forest after weeks. And about people who are still in contact with the Evalena and who are now finally living in safety and peace. The firmly convinced of the nervous employees that it is right and remains to help people: Despite everything, this continues to encourage me.
What would a crumporary solution look like from the point of view of Terre des Hommes?
All children, all young people, all people have the right to be heard and checked in Europe asylum. However, this is disregarded daily at many external borders of the EU. Especially for children and families, safe escape routes to Europe are also needed so that they get the chance to search for protection without risking their lives. This takes extensive recording projects instead of hatred and agitation, as we are currently experiencing.
Terre des Hommes has been supporting young refugees who come to Germany for over forty years. What can we learn from this for the debate about flight and migration?
Children and adolescents who are looking for protection with us flee from wars and violence. Many of them want to find a new home and security. We are currently experiencing anti -migration rhetoric worldwide, which increasingly turns violence against refugees. Also and then it is our job as a child rights organization to make it clear again and again: the defective financing of the education system, lack of living space and lack of daycare places are the results of a failed social policy of the past decades. Pushing all the refugee into the shoes is wrong and fueling hatred. Together with children and adolescents, but also in large civil society allies, we therefore oppose the right of right and continue to demand child-friendly and humane asylum and migration policy.
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