Recent fatal shipwrecks have done nothing to advance EU-led action on migration that puts “human rights first”, Save the Children Europe advisor Federica Toscano told Euractiv on the 10th anniversary of a shipwreck that saw 360 drown off the Italian coast of Lampedusa.
The boat, which carried more than 500 people, departed on 1 October 2013 from the Libyan city of Misrata. Only 155 people survived the shipwreck.
“It seems no number is high enough to take systemic and EU-led action to put human rights first. Europe has failed to commit to saving lives at sea, reducing capacity and restricting civil society search and rescue operations,” Toscano said, pointing out that without safe pathways and search and rescue efforts more people will die.
The expert explained that 90% of people who obtain international protection arrive on EU soil “irregularly”.
“The EU and its member states are demanding countries of origin and transit focus on border management and adopt restrictive migration policies, but have failed to consider the harmful impact these measures have on children,” Toscano said.
More than 11,600 children crossed the Central Mediterranean Sea to Italy without their parents or legal guardians between January and mid-September 2023, the UN agency for children UNICEF said in a press release on Friday (30 September).
This is an increase of 60% compared to the same period last year, where around 7,200 unaccompanied or separated children made the perilous crossing, the UN agency said.
In early August, the UN published a report with evidence of how migrants in Libya, particularly children, are part of the human trafficking networks, exposed to detention, sexual abuse and forced labour.
“The UN has continued to observe the prolonged detention of child migrants without any judicial process, in violation of the country’s human rights obligations,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said about the report in August.
“The Mediterranean Sea has become a cemetery for children and their futures. The devastating toll on children seeking asylum and safety in Europe is a result of policy choices and a broken migration system,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF Regional Director for Europe and Central Asia and Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Response in Europe.
UNICEF asks governments “to provide safer and legal pathways for seeking asylum; ensure children are not held in closed facilities; strengthen national child protection systems to better protect children migrating; coordinate search and rescue operations and ensure disembarkation to places of safety”.
After the journey
Children who survive the journeys, UNICEF explains, are first held in centres known as ‘hotspots’ before being transferred to reception facilities that are often closed and limit movement. More than 21,700 unaccompanied children are currently in such facilities across Italy, up from 17,700 a year ago, according to the Italian government’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.
In September, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced the possibility of prolonging the period of detention in Centres for Permanence and Repatriation to 18 months.
Five Star Movement and Italian MEP Laura Ferrara recently visited the centre in Oderzo, in northern Italy, and told Euractiv that the situation was a “real ghettoisation” of the migrants and saw a “degradation of human dignity”.
EU for migrant children?
The EU is close to finalising a package of 10 legislative files that would create a harmonised border management and asylum system, including asylum procedures for the youngest.
Commission confident of migration deal but divides among ministers persist
Ministers will reach a deal on a key migration law “in a few days”, EU Commissioner for migration Ylva Johansson told journalists following a meeting of EU home affairs ministers on Thursday (27 September), despite significant disagreements persisting on key parts of the file.
One of the key files in the pact is the Crisis Management Regulation which deals with situations when a high number of third-country nationals come to the EU border in a short period of time.
EU interior ministers are still negotiating whether to make asylum procedures easier for minors under 12 years old, a diplomatic source told Euractiv.
“The Pact on Asylum and Migration that is currently negotiated cannot be built on deterrence: the political priority should be to offer children protection, not to ‘protect’ external borders from them,” Toscano told Euractiv.
The main political parties in the European Parliament say that they will endorse the migration pact when the final text is put to them.
[Edited by Benjamin Fox/Nathalie Weatherald]
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Source: euractiv.com
