18/06/2010 Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Strasbourg, 18.06.2010 – Speaking on the eve of World Refugee Day on 20 June, John Greenway (United Kingdom, EDG), Chair of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), made the following statement:
“World Refugee Day is an important opportunity to remind governments of their human rights obligations to asylum seekers and refugees. Our Committee continues to be concerned about the treatment of child migrants and refugees. The committee has recently reconfirmed its total opposition to the detention of child migrants and its concerns over forced returns.
In this context, recent plans to forcibly return unaccompanied children, many of whom have claimed asylum in Europe, to Afghanistan, and reports that ‘reception’ centres could be established in Kabul for deported children, raise concerns.
On the one hand, the willingness to find solutions for unaccompanied children, and provide those that are being returned with a measure of support, is to be welcomed. On the other hand, questions arise over whether sending them back into an unsafe environment – especially as many may be orphans – will be in their ‘best interest’. These children are as vulnerable as it is possible to be. However secure and well-run reception centres may be in Kabul, it is not clear how these children will be kept safe in a country where violence is endemic and human rights are routinely violated.
The current push to return irregular migrants, including children, is in part motivated by the economic crisis and partly by domestic political pressure. Children should not be hostages of the economic crisis and political pressure, however, and decisions concerning their welfare should be taken only on the grounds of their “best interest”, as guaranteed under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Council of Europe has a firm position on forced returns, whether this is for adults or for children. The Council of Europe’s ‘Twenty Guidelines on Forced Returns’ must be fully respected and alternative solutions to forced returns need to be examined. In this respect the Assembly will be debating on 22 June how to promote voluntary returns as a humane, effective and less costly alternative to forced returns, and will later be looking in detail at the issue of unaccompanied minors in Europe: issues of arrival, stay and return.
World Refugee Day is also an opportunity to remind all Council of Europe member states that by ratifying the 1951 Refugee Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, state parties have committed themselves to protect refugees and find durable solutions to their problems.”