Protecting children from disappearance, from European priorities to local realities
Last Updated: 23 May 2018
by Giacomo MANCA
As a consequence of the dysfunctional asylum procedures throughout Europe, thousands of children escaping war are going missing in their migration roots: this failure to give accession to child protection services to unaccompanied minors is a stain on the conscience of EU member states, affirms Mike Stannett, head of office of the EU Affairs Office: “The attitude of 'we don't want them here' is fuelling the enormous risks that they face of being trafficked, abuses and neglected. Children on the streets of Greece are being sold for sex in broad day light, no one raises a cry because they are not their children. If a local child goes missing it makes into national news, but for these children there is nobody to cry for them”.
Last 11-12 April, the EU Affairs office participated in the two days conference “Lost In Migration. Working together to protect children from disappearance, from European priorities to local realities”, organised by Missing Children Europe.
Reception centres are like leaking buckets, as a lot of children, making up about 27% of overall asylum seekers, are at risk of being trafficked. After taking part to this interesting event, we identified a few useful reflections for the Salvation Army
Considerations for the Salvation Army
· Development of a guardianship programme for unaccompanied children at TSA corps level, similar to a fostering system: this could have links with TSA Family ministries and Family tracing support.
· Focus the work in Greece on this issue: work with children shelters
· Provide transitional and preventative isolation support at the corps’ level
· Use TSA’s network to provide a safe path for secondary movement.
· Involve existing TSA child protection homes/services, as a bridge to fostering
· Raise awareness of where abuse is taking place in the open To raise awareness in our congregations ‘we don’t want them here’ attitude : fuels the risk
Tags: Europe