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The European Commission is due to address the European Parliament today on how to tackle the disappearance of migrant children in Europe. Almost 90,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in the EU in 2015, with 2016 figures expected to be higher. The Greens/EFA group is calling on the Commission and Member States to put the rights of children first, regardless of their migration status.

Commenting ahead of the debate, Green migration spokesperson Jean Lambert said:

“It is shameful that the European Commission and member states are continuing to drag their feet on the protection of vulnerable children. The existing EU policies on asylum and migration are contributing to children, who have often travelled great distances to flee awful situations at home, being pushed out of the system with terrible consequences. We have to start putting the needs of children first, regardless of their migration status. The necessary support needs to be in place for unaccompanied children from the moment they arrive to ensure that they are safe throughout the asylum process and that their rights are upheld.

“In particular, family reunification procedures need to be clear, fast and effective. The failure of the current procedures for reuniting children with their families pushes many children into the services of smugglers – as we have seen in the situation in Calais. Beyond ensuring that children are safe and with either family or a supportive guardian, we need to do more to invest in them, and empower them to fulfil their potential as equal participants in our communities. Crucial to this is access to education for all asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children, as soon as possible from the moment they arrive in Europe.”

Watch Jean’s speech to the European Parliament in full here

ENDS

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New research published today details how voluntary organisations are struggling to fill Government gaps in the care of vulnerable families.

Reacting to the report, published by Oxford University’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and Green Party migration spokesperson said:

“Volunteer groups and small charities are doing incredible work helping desperate families who have nowhere else to turn, whether from the UK or elsewhere, but they are being stretched to their limits. This is a desperate situation caused by the fact the Government is not doing its job.

“It is appalling that families who have fled their homes in search of safety are not finding safety in the UK. We are a generous welcoming country and we can do much better than this. People and communities all over Britain want to welcome refugees but we need Government to match this compassion.

“The UK needs to end its failed ‘deterrence first’ asylum policy and put the funding in place that is urgently needed. We need better more humane processing of asylum claims, and we need extra funding for local authorities and the voluntary sector so they can they provide the services needed. Sadly I doubt there will be much good news for struggling voluntary organisations and the people who rely on them in today’s Autumn’s statement.”

Read Jean’s article calling for a humane approach to asylum in the Green World magazine.

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Last month some hundreds of unaccompanied children were brought to the UK at the eleventh hour before the makeshift Calais migrant camp was destroyed, but since then no other children have been identified for transfer to Britain.

Now the British Government has announced new criteria which will exclude unaccompanied children from countries that are not Syria and Sudan from coming to the UK, except in exceptional circumstances.

Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and Greens migration spokesperson said:

“Out of sight must never mean out of mind for vulnerable young refugees and asylum seekers. The Home Office is still not doing its job. Many children still in France are known to have family in the UK and to be eligible to come here – these young people must not be left in limbo.

“Now new Home Office guidelines will discriminate against many of the children because of where they come from – this is cruel in the extreme. These unaccompanied minors have already been through unimaginable horrors and had to endure months in horrendous conditions – the least they deserve is for their cases to be looked at properly.

“People up and down the UK and many local councils want to stand with refugees and migrants. Greens will keep up pressure on the Government to stop callously dragging its heels and to keep its promises to young refugees.”

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The UK has a history of a ‘deterrence first’ asylum policy. It’s true that we are the world’s second largest foreign aid donor, and this is welcome. But, increasingly, giving financial aid centres on keeping refugees out of the UK for poorer countries to handle. Around 1.3 million asylum applications were lodged in the EU in 2015 – just 32,414 people applied for protection in the UK. The situation we’ve seen in Calais is a symbol of this protracted failure. I first visited refugees in Sangatte in Northern France around 15 years ago. Successive UK and French governments have tried to clear the informal camps and stop Calais being a destination for people moving through Europe. But more people have come, and the conditions have become more appalling and dangerous.

It is particularly intolerable to think of children living in such a place, cared for by volunteers, not the authorities. Children have gone missing each time the makeshift Calais camp has been destroyed. An estimated 10,000 refugee children have disappeared over the last year in the EU as a whole.

Time will tell if the Calais camp has closed definitively this time. I hope this time the closure does marks a turning point towards an ongoing humane and dignified approach to asylum.

Rather than repelling people, the authorities need to help those who wish to apply for asylum by supporting them to access the system and rapidly providing information and advice in a language they understand. Safe, sanitary accommodation and healthcare should be provided for all. As the actions of the Green Mayor of Grande-Synthe show, it is possible to do this with the support of your community.

Across Europe, we need a more flexible and welcoming approach to people desperately seeking safety and a chance to live. Importantly, asylum seekers’ preferences as to which member state they want to claim asylum in should be considered. Without taking people’s valid reasons for wanting to be in a certain country (such as family, community links or language skills) into consideration, the system will not work effectively. This is something the Greens in the European Parliament are pushing for at the moment.

I believe the UK can be a generous and welcoming country. People want to help. We need government to match this compassion.

by Jean Lambert MEP, for Green World magazine.

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As the French authorities prepare to empty and permanently close refugee camps around Calais in northern France this week, Jean Lambert MEP, the Green Party’s migration spokesperson, said:

“Whilst it is a relief that we are now seeing vulnerable young people arriving in the UK from Calais, there is nothing fast about this so-called ‘fast tracking’. People, including hundreds of unaccompanied minors, who have already been through unimaginable horrors, have had to endure months and months in horrendous conditions because the Government here did not do its job and nor did the French.

“Now I urge the British and French authorities to make sure that all camp residents, and especially vulnerable young people, are taken to safety before the demolition of the camp gets underway. I hope that this time the closure of the makeshift Calais camp marks a turning point towards an ongoing humane and dignified approach to asylum.

“The volunteers and non-government organisations, like Citizens UK, working on the ground in Calais and to welcome refugees here in the UK deserve special mention for their amazing work. They have stepped in and done what Governments failed to.”

ENDS

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* Warm intentions between officials do nothing to improve the safety and security of children

The Green Party has branded the British and French failure to deal with the situation in Calais as ‘shameful’ as the Home Secretary made a long-overdue commitment to bring unaccompanied children to Britain.

Responding to Amber Rudd’s announcement, Jean Lambert, MEP and Green Party migration spokesperson, said:

“I welcome the Home Secretary’s statement today that those unaccompanied minors who are legally allowed come to Britain should be brought here as soon as possible and before the clearance of the Calais camp. It is also right that she commit to bringing over those children who qualify under the Dubs amendment as quickly as possible and to ensure they are looked after in safe facilities until that time.

“However given the length of time it has taken to get to this point I continue to call on the French and British authorities to quite simply do their jobs. This long-standing failure on the part of the French government, aided and abetted by the British government, to humanely deal with the situation in Calais, is shameful.

“Warm intentions between officials do nothing to improve the safety and security of children. We know that every time the camps are cleared vulnerable children go missing.  Last week my colleagues and I wrote to the relevant authorities in Britain and France calling on them not to waste money on building a wall that will further exacerbate the situation, but rather on providing safety, information and choices for people in need. The British and French governments need to act and now.”

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* International Greens condemn intolerable situation for unaccompanied children in letter to May and Hollande

Greens from both sides of the Channel have today expressed their dismay at the joint failure of the UK and French governments to take child refugees in camps in Calais to safety.

In a letter to UK Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Hollande, the nine UK and French Green Members of the European Parliament and the leaders of the UK and French Green parties [1], urge immediate action to protect unaccompanied children before the camps begin to be emptied.

The letters comes ahead of a debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg which will again put the situation in Calais in the spotlight. Greens will use the debate to criticize the long-standing history of French failure to deliver effectively on its obligations, aided and abetted by a UK Government which is dragging its heels over the safety and security of children, including unaccompanied children who are entitled to be in the UK.

It also comes as British Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who has also received a copy of the letter, has offered warm words – but no new commitments – about child refugees at the Conservative Party conference.

Jean Lambert, MEP for London and Greens’ migration spokesperson said:

“My colleagues and I have again written to the relevant British and French authorities to ask them to do their job properly. Building walls displaces problems, it doesn’t solve them. That money would be better spent by the French and British governments on providing safety, information and choices for people in need and managing the asylum system in the region in a humane and dignified way.”

Keith Taylor, MEP for the South East, said.

“I empathise with the frustrations of local residents, hauliers, and travellers on both sides of the channel, but we must not abandon our legal and moral duties to approach this crisis with humanity.”

“Theresa May must reject the populist anti-refugee rhetoric and act to fulfil the UK’s moral and legal obligations. The government’s dereliction of duty is forcing children fleeing war into the arms of smugglers and traffickers. Immigration policies are systematically failing vulnerable children when child protection should be the guiding principle. History will not judge us favourably if we abandon our responsibility to these children.”

Molly Scott Cato, MEP for the South West, said:

“It is inexcusable that this intolerable situation is found on the border between two of the richest countries in the world. The UK government is using the limbo-land that desperate people find themselves in as an excuse for not fully implementing their obligations under international and EU law. Resorting to Trump-esque style wall building is wrong and it will fail. The solution is to enable the registration of refugee claims by those with a right to be in the UK in the French camps themselves and ensure that transfers take place speedily.

“The safety of unaccompanied children must be paramount and the UK and French authorities must immediately take such children to safety, and urgently find lasting, dignified, humane solutions to what is a shared responsibility for refugees and asylum seekers.”

Today’s debate is partly in response to a request to the European Commission from UK Green MEPs. The scope of the debate – originally tabled as being about the situation for hauliers – has been broadened to the humanitarian situation on request of the Greens.

UK Green MEPs wrote to the European Commission in June requesting a debate about the situation for asylum seekers in Northern France, and asking for it to appeal to the British and French Governments to protect the human rights of refugees in Europe.

In a response received last week, the Commission confirmed it is the responsibility of France to determine which country is responsible for examining an asylum seeker’s application, and the repsonsibiltiy of the UK to consider the applications of people with a family member already in the UK.

More than a year has passed since the UK Government committed to transfer 3,000 unaccompanied refugee children under the Dubs Amendment, yet a tiny few have arrived in the UK, and the processing of applications remains inexcusably slow.

Joint UK and French Greens letter about children in Calais, October 2016

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