France is committing “grave and systematic violations” of the rights of unaccompanied migrant children, leaving many homeless, deprived of basic care and in degrading conditions, a UN watchdog said Thursday.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child noted that France provides protection to unaccompanied minors, but warned that flawed age assessment procedures led to many migrant children being wrongly treated as adults.
This leaves them without access to the child protection system, and puts them “at high risk of being exposed to trafficking, abuse, maltreatment and police violence,” the report said.
It noted there were no comprehensive official figures on the number of unaccompanied migrant children affected, but warned the problem was “widespread and persistent”.
The committee, whose 18 independent experts are tasked with monitoring how countries implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child, determined that France had breached its obligations.
Paris, it said, had violated a wide range of children’s rights, including the right to healthcare and education and the prohibition of detention for migration-related reasons and inhuman or degrading treatment.
It highlighted that a presumption of minority is only applied in France until an initial age assessment decision is made, meaning that children who are mistakenly identified as adults are treated as such through their entire months-long procedure.
Many are then “left to survive on the streets, in parks, or in informal makeshift camps without enough food and drinking water, and with no health care or education”, it cautioned.
The committee warned that “the proportion of those ruled to be minors after their age reassessments have been overturned ranges from 50 to 80 percent”.
It also documented serious situations affecting unaccompanied migrant children transiting through France to reach Britain, who are not supported by the French child protection system.
Some of them were detained in airport waiting zones or other border holding centres, in a “disproportionate and therefore arbitrary” deprivation of their liberty, the report said, warning this was harmful to children’s mental health.
The committee, whose opinions are non-binding but carry reputational weight, called on France to give people the benefit of the doubt on minority status.
Among other recommendations, it also urged the country to guarantee adequate housing, food and water to all claiming to be unaccompanied migrant children to ensure that no child has to live in an informal camp or on the streets.
In a response to the committee, seen by AFP, the French government stressed that 2023-2027 strategic plan for judicial protection for young people “enhanced and coordinated support for prioritised and particularly vulnerable groups” like unaccompanied minors.
nl/rjm/ach
© Agence France-Presse
