Immigration DetentionENDING CHILD DETENTION

End Child Detention

“States must expeditiously and completely cease the detention of children on the basis of their immigration status.”

- UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, February 2013

Overview

This presentation will:

•Give information on the scope of the problem;

•Look at HRW research in Europe and beyond, detailing the fundamental harm of detaining children;

•Discuss examples of progress and alternatives to detention;

•Examine next steps to ending child detention.

Reza stands outside the abandoned house in which he lives with other Afghan migrants in Patras, Greece.© 2012 Alice Farmer/Human Rights Watch

Migrant families in a recreation room in the main detention facility at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, France.© 2003 Getty Images

© 2012 Human Rights Watch

Progress in MaltaDuring a rally on Sunday, March 30, for Malta’s Freedom Day, which marks the country’s independence from British rule, Maltese prime minister Muscat pledged to end the detention of migrant children.

Malta currently detains around 150 – 200 unaccompanied minors per year, pending age determination. Our research found an average detention time of 3.4 months.

Alternatives exist: Malta’s open reception centers.

Thailand’s Bangkok Immigration Detention Center. © HRW, 2013

Alternatives

• Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that detention of any type should only be used against children as “a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”

• The Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe has stated that “as a principle, migrant children should not be subjected to detention.”

• The Committee on the Rights of the Child in General Comment No.6 states that “unaccompanied or separated children should not, as a general rule, be detained,” and “detention cannot be justified solely on… their migratory or residence status, or lack thereof.” 

• UNHCR specifically argues that “[c]hildren seeking asylum should not be kept in detention and that this is particularly important in the case of unaccompanied children.”

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IDC 5-Step ProcessThe International Detention Coalition (IDC), an association of over 250 NGOs and individuals in more than 50 countries working to protect the rights of migrants in immigration detention, proposes a five-step process for countries to avoid the detention of children. 1)Governments to adopt a presumption against the detention of children, prior to any migrants’ arrivals. 2)When a migrant child arrives, with or without their family, the authorities should screen the individual to determine their age, allocate a case worker, and place the child (and family) into a community setting. 3)The case manager works with the child or family to resolve the individual migration case (an incentive to comply with the program). 4)The child or family’s placement in an alternative to detention is reviewed periodically, and an assessment is made of the risk of the child or family absconding prior to departure. 5)The child or family is granted the right to stay, or deported.