Displaying items by tag: unaccompanied child migrants

Kent county council is refusing to accept any more unaccompanied child migrants, after warning its services were at breaking point for the second time in less than a year. The county is locked in a battle with the Home Office, and has issued legal proceedings against the home secretary, saying the level of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the county had reached ‘unsafe’ levels. Kent’s cabinet member for integrated children’s services said the council had taken the move as it was clear that the Home Office did not intend to use existing powers to direct other local authorities to receive their fair share of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Kent has nearly double the number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care that the government says it is safe to have.

The number of unaccompanied child migrants living in ‘dirty’ Greek detention centres has increased ‘alarmingly’, said Human Rights Watch. 117 were in police cells or custody centres in Greece at the end of July, compared to just two last November. Under Greek law the authorities should separate vulnerable minors into safe accommodation, where they are appointed guardians who represent them in legal proceedings. However, when there’s no room in safe shelters the authorities lock them in dirty, crowded police cells and immigration detention facilities, sometimes with unrelated adults, instead of being cared for.