UNICEF Spain has said it welcomes "with satisfaction" the agreement reached for the relocation of unaccompanied foreign minors from the Canary Islands and Ceuta and has called for "clear and sufficient" funding and the commitment and collaboration of all autonomous communities to carry it out.
In a statement, the representation in Spain of this organization has described this distribution mechanism, approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers in the form of a royal decree law after the Government obtained the support of Junts, as "essential" to address the humanitarian migration emergency.
The migration specialist of UNICEF Spain, Sara Collantes, has recalled that the situation of unaccompanied migrant children in the Canary Islands and Ceuta has been "extremely worrying for months" and the saturation of the child protection system on the southern border, "unsustainable."
"Protection centers should be safe spaces, but the great paradox is that, due to this saturation, the system that is there to protect them ends up generating defenselessness," she lamented.
She stressed that these young people arrive in Spain after "very hard routes," which in some cases have lasted for years and have been "full of deprivations such as hunger and thirst, dangers, exploitation" or terrible experiences such as seeing people die on the way and many are potential applicants for international protection.
The organization has recalled that "political agreements must guarantee the international and national framework of the rights of children and adolescents" and, in this sense, has recalled that repatriations of unaccompanied minors must have the best interests of the child at the center, can never be collective and are subject to strong legal guarantees.
It has demanded that the new transfer mechanism always prioritize the best interests of the child, for which it is necessary to listen to them and assess their situation individually, in order to make the most appropriate decisions with coordination between the autonomous child protection systems.
On the other hand, the spokesperson and head of Campaigns and Communication of the NGO Accem, María Tejada, has also positively assessed the measure approved this Tuesday, which in her opinion will help to respond to a situation that "has to have an urgent response to protect minors."
But they also emphasize that it will contribute to "generating long-term solutions that help to respond to the situation of aggravated vulnerability experienced by minors who arrive alone in our country."
Tejada stressed that the children and adolescents who arrive alone in the country are "minors living situations that do not correspond to them," so they must be at the center of public policies.
