"The decisive and primordial thing is the boys and girls and everything else will be adjective issues, with certain relevance without a doubt, but that cannot constitute an excuse to do less, do differently or simply stop doing". This is stated in the Report of the Ombudsman of Foreign boys and girls in Spain alone or accompanied, presented last May 2025.
The Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, points out the differences in treatment between foreign minors and national children of Spain. Among the shortcomings found in the system, he warns of the "lack of training" of the personnel hired to detect vulnerable foreign minors, delays in compulsory schooling and lack of information so that minors can access international protection.
In this sense, he relied on a work carried out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which in 2024 through its Spanish delegation conducted 574 interviews with minors from 36 centers. In them, he highlighted that "at least half" of the boys and girls might need international protection, but that 69% of the minors had not received any information about the right to asylum and about the procedure.
This lack of information is attributed by the Ombudsman to "the lack of adequately trained personnel" in assessing childhood trauma in migratory contexts, the damage suffered and the risks of returning them to their country of origin.
In this sense, he emphasizes that it will only be possible to determine the situation of each minor if they are listened to, "using the appropriate methodology" and an assessment is made with their "manifestations, non-verbal expressions and their maturity". In addition, he indicated that in several cases of applicants for international protection the procedure "greatly exceeded" the urgent deadline.
In this sense, "given the presence of a very relevant number of boys and girls in the Canary Islands who have international protection needs", he recommended to the Secretary of State for Migration that spaces be enabled for those over 16 years of age in the resources that depend on the General State Administration to facilitate the transition to adult life "more in line" with their circumstances.
An identification system with gaps
Among other measures, Ángel Gabilondo urges the creation of a coordination protocol between the General State Administration and the child protection entity of each autonomous community, which adapts to each territory of first reception.
In this sense, he highlights that in the Canary Islands, when a precarious boat arrives, there is no "unequivocal identification system" that "guarantees" that the people attended are identified from the first moment and during their passage through the rest of the resources in the same way. Therefore, the current situation means that duplicates or errors exist in the records "due to the lack of assignment" of a foreign identification document.
The Ombudsman highlights the problems in the age determination tests of minors and aligns himself with the State Attorney General to point out that "the only solution" is to create "a specific law" that regulates the determination of age through a civil judicial procedure, "with all the guarantees of hearing and due assistance" to the possible minor.
At the same time, he points out that there are several shortcomings in the procedures carried out by public administrations for the integration of these children. Among them, "a significant" number of minors had no birth registration, from their country of origin or migratory transit of their mothers, "nor had the procedures been initiated" to register them in the Spanish Civil Registry.
At the same time, minors face "administrative obstacles" to be schooled without being discriminated against. In addition, he points out the "delays" in this compulsory schooling and the absence of information on international protection adapted to children, which "worries" the Ombudsman due to the number of girls who have been arriving.
Migrant girls and women
The aforementioned report points out "the fragility of childhood in mobility" and states that since 2020, the arrivals of women accompanied by very young children "began to stand out", reaching 5% of the total. In this way, it indicates "the invisibility" of minors, which is aggravated by the situation of documentary irregularity suffered by their mothers or adults who accompany them.
Ángel Gabilondo proposes to Spain to "consider specific measures" for minors who live in the country, accompanied by adults with a return order, in order to achieve that they "get out of the situations of precariousness and marginality" in which they find themselves.
Regarding the repatriation of minors who have made their migratory journey without adults, proposed by parties such as Coalición Canaria, the Ombudsman indicates that these measures have had "a scarce practical virtuality" and that "even when it has been tried to achieve" the return there has been a "judicial questioning". Among them, he explains that in 2007, Spain signed an agreement with Morocco that was analyzed by the Supreme Court.
