No compromises at the expense of the rights of refugee children in the EU
Osnabrück, May 17, 2023 – As part of an alliance of more than 50 organizations, the children's rights organization terre des hommes is calling on the German government to abandon its plans to reform the Common European Asylum System. With the upcoming meeting of EU interior ministers on June 8 in mind, the alliance is appealing to the German government to live up to its humanitarian responsibility and take its own coalition agreement seriously. There must be no compromises at the expense of the protection and rights of refugee children and young people.
Right around the 30th anniversary of the 1993 asylum compromise, the most significant change to German asylum law to date, the German government, together with other European member states, is preparing a similar change to European asylum law. Together with more than 50 other organizations terre des hommes strongly rejects the German position on the reform of the so-called Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was agreed upon by the government at the end of April. The reform plans would lead to detention camps at the EU's external borders and could result in a departure from substantive assessments of refugees' protection claims within the EU. From a child rights perspective, the reform proposals also violate the best interests of the child and fundamental rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“That the German government plans to go along with the path of disenfranchising refugees in the EU, especially children and young people, is unacceptable. Should an agreement be reached among the European interior ministers on June 8, asylum applications from refugee children and young people in the EU could be widely rejected as inadmissible because they can be granted a minimum of protection on paper in a non-European country. This is in blatant contradiction to children's and human rights, but also to the German government's commitment to substantively examining every asylum application in the EU. In the worst-case scenario, it means a withdrawal from refugee protection in the EU, comparable to the German asylum compromise of 1993,” explained Sophia Eckert, migration and refugee expert at terre des hommes .
Furthermore, the proposed reforms lack a systematic and practically enforceable safeguarding of children's rights. Guardianship and legal representation for unaccompanied minors are not guaranteed from day one. In the so-called "screening," which determines whether an expedited procedure at the border or a standard procedure will foreseeably place minors in detention centers or prison-like facilities. Age assessments would also frequently take place under detention or prison-like conditions, and there is no recourse against incorrect age assessments. Without adequate legal recourse, the rights of children and young people cannot be protected, and their well-being cannot be guaranteed.
“From a child rights perspective, the reform proposals are devastating. Even if minors, as is likely in screening, only spend a few days in detention, this time can feel like months to them due to their heightened sense of time – with all the physical and psychological consequences that detention can have on children. The detention of minors for migration control violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This must be taken into account in any European asylum law reform,” explained Sophia Eckert. “At the very least, the German government intends to advocate at the EU level for exempting minors from the accelerated asylum procedures, which can last up to twelve weeks, in detention centers at the border. It must not give in on this point in Brussels under any circumstances. Haggling over arbitrary age limits is untenable from a child rights perspective. The Convention on the Rights of the Child protects all persons up to the age of 18.”
Similar to the 1993 asylum compromise in Germany, the tightening of European asylum laws is emerging in a climate of growing right-wing populist pressure within the EU. terre des hommes and its European partner organizations are simultaneously observing an increasing willingness to use violence and violate the rights of refugee children and minors. As a joint statement by terre des hommes and Equal Rights Beyond Borders demonstrates, minors are already being detained on the Greek island of Kos, their social, cultural, and economic rights being severely violated. terre des hommes is appealing to the German government to resolutely oppose this pressure and the populist agitation against refugees. This also means that any European agreement on the asylum system must not compromise the fundamental rights of refugee children and young people. Human rights and the protection of the child's welfare must finally take center stage in the European discourse. We demand: Child welfare, not detention!