Video: https://youtu.be/adVh28AyJ-E
Honourable Members,
Children’s protection is a priority of our policies.
Children in migration in particular, given the multiple risks they are facing. Children in migration need to be protected, assisted and offered durable solutions at all stages of migration to avoid that they are exploited, abused or trafficked.
This challenge is becoming even more pressing given that in 2016 children represented 26% of the arrivals by sea, which means an almost tenfold increase since 2010.
Many of them are unaccompanied minors.
Moreover, shortly after their arrival in Europe, an increasing number of minors abscond or disappear.
In spite of the efforts taken at European and national level, the situation of minors remains unsatisfactory and protection gaps must still be filled.
Ensuring adequate assistance, both in terms of material supply, adequate reception and care, legal information as well as psycho-social support,
is key to build trust and avoid absconding.
The Commission is working on concrete and comprehensive actions to ensure protection of children in migration.
The European Agenda on Migration and the Action Plan on Unaccompanied Minors is our starting point of course.
The Commission will also follow-up on the conclusions of 10th European Forum on the rights of the child organised in November 2016 and on the outcome of the recent conference organised by missing children in Malta in January.
In Greece, the Commission is actively supporting the appointment of a child protection officer in each hotspot.
Here, the availability of sufficient dedicated reception facilities remains a challenge both on the islands and in the mainland with over one thousand unaccompanied children still awaiting a shelter placement.
EU funding is available under the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund to support capacity building, provide relevant infrastructure, assistance or develop operational actions in frontline Member States.
Additional funding is available under the Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme to improve child protection in migration.
In 2017, priorities on violence against children and women explicitly include children in migration. EASO, European Border and Coast Guard and Europol are also supporting frontline Member States in identifying unaccompanied minors and providing information on relocation.
They offer capacity building activities and collaborate with public security departments for investigations on smuggling and trafficking.
Ensuring legal ways of transfers is another key aspect to prevent absconding and falling into smugglers traps.
The Dublin system, including transfers and family reunification, and the relocation schemes must work efficiently and fast.
All actors need to better collaborate to smoothly implement these procedures.
For the moment, only 205 unaccompanied minors have been relocated from Greece and Italy. This is not satisfactory.
However, the Commission works closely with Member States in this respect.
The Commission has deployed dedicated teams in frontline Member States to address this matter.
Moreover, the last years’ proposals to reform the Common European Asylum System aim at strengthening the guarantees available for vulnerable persons, including children who seek international protection in Europe.
The proposals include provisions on safe accommodation in suitable reception facilities, and prompt and effective guardianship for unaccompanied minors who apply for asylum.
In the absence of travel documents, fingerprinting is one of the very few options to identify a person.
For this reason, last years’ reform proposals also aim to lower the minimum age for fingerprinting from 14 to 6 years old, with a view to better protecting the interests of the child and reducing the risks of going missing.
Swift progress on all asylum proposals is now needed in the European Parliament and the Council.
It is part of the Joint Declaration on priority legislative proposals.
If children go missing, they have to be found. Fast.
Existing instruments to report and record children disappearances must be fully used.
The Schengen Information System constitutes the only European-wide information exchange on missing persons in general.
For this system to be useful, missing children must be reported to the police and other relevant authorities.
They should immediately record the disappearance in SIS attaching photographs and fingerprints and indicating that the child is unaccompanied.
Currently the System Information System stores information on about 100 000 missing persons in 29 European countries out of which about 65 000 are children.
In 2016, 7 687 persons were found on the basis of SIS.
In addition, the Commission has recently proposed to improve the System information Schengen.
For instance, we suggest having a new type of preventive alerts for missing unaccompanied children to be issued in cases when a child is particularly at risk.
Better use must also be made of the existing missing children hotlines (116 000).
For instance, all reception centres managers should report all cases of children going missing via this hotline.
As you can see, many actions are ongoing to better protect the children in migration and the European Union shall set up its efforts.
The migration crisis has been exploited by criminal networks involved in trafficking in human beings to target the most vulnerable, in particular women and children.
It is our duty to protect children.
We need to focus on prevention, the quality of care and protection.
We must reinforce our fight against the criminals, mobilise public opinion and put pressure on Member States to use all tools available to protect children in migration.
Let us live up to the challenge and address it by using all our resources
in a united and coordinated manner.