Nowhere to Turn: State Abuses of Unaccompanied Migrant Children by Spain and Morocco
This report is the result of one of a series of Human Rights Watch investigations into the treatment of migrants in Western Europe. It is based on interviews with unaccompanied migrant children, government officials, representatives of nongovernmental organizations, and local activists in Ceuta & Melilla (Spanish enclaves in Morocco), Madrid in Spain, and Tangier, Rabat, and Casablanca in Morocco. Report demonstrates that despite an attempt to guarantee all children the rights specified in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both countries fail to recognise the right to education, health care, temporary residency status, and protection from repatriation if repatriation puts the child or the child's family at risk. In Spain, the report shows that conditions for unaccompanied migrant children vary throughout Spain, reflecting differences in the number of children in a particular city, local and regional governments' willingness to implement the law, and the existence of nongovernmental organizations working on behalf of unaccompanied children. In the case of Morocco, local authorities are unable to provide unaccompanied migrant children the care and protection they require. Children expelled from Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco frequently face beatings, extortion, and detention in unsafe conditions at the hands of Moroccan police.
The report provides a list of recommendations:
- The Government of Spain should provide access to residential care, education, emergency services and other health care, and temporary residency documents, as required by Spanish law.
- The Governments of Spain and Morocco should coordinate to ensure that children are repatriated from Spain to Morocco only when they are returned to family members who are willing and able to care for them
- The Government of Morocco should facilitate the return to Morocco of unaccompanied migrant children when it is in the children's best interest and should provide resources for their care and protection
- The Government of Morocco should take steps to protect unaccompanied migrant children who have been returned to Morocco from Spain from cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and other abuses at the hands of police.