{"id":33959,"date":"2013-09-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ready-for-feedback3.com\/shape-history\/fmr\/farmer-2\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T09:46:18","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T14:46:18","slug":"farmer-2","status":"publish","type":"fmr_content","link":"https:\/\/www.fmreview.org\/es\/farmer-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The impact of immigration detention on children"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over more than ten years of research in Europe and beyond, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has documented serious violations of children\u2019s rights arising from immigration detention of children.[i]<\/a> Children may be arbitrarily detained, held in cells with unrelated adults, and subjected to brutal treatment by police, guards and other authorities. They are often held in poor conditions that fall far short of international standards governing appropriate settings for children deprived of their liberty.<\/p>\n

Children in immigration detention include unaccompanied migrant children, children in families (including young infants), asylum-seeking and refugee children, and children whose parents are seeking asylum or are refugees. Many leave refugee-producing countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Sri Lanka and embark on long journeys to seek safety. Children are detained both in transit countries, like Indonesia, Turkey, Greece, Libya and Egypt, and in countries that they or their parents see as the ultimate destination country, such as Australia, the UK and Scandinavian countries.<\/p>\n

Greece is one of the major gateways for migrants entering the EU but has particularly bad practices for migrant children.[ii]<\/a> Unaccompanied children can spend months in detention centres \u2013 often in the same cells as unrelated adults \u2013 in conditions that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture called \u201cunacceptable\u201d. Twelve-year-old Sharzad and her 16-year-old brother Sardar from Afghanistan, for example, were detained in the Kyprinou facility in Fylakio when we interviewed them in 2008: \u201cWe have been here for 65 days,\u201d she said. \u201cSomeone informed us that we would stay here for three months\u2026. I want to be released and I don\u2019t want to stay longer.\u201d Sharzad shared her cell with six adult women to whom she was not related and with whom she was unable to communicate.<\/p>\n

Once released from detention in Greece, unaccompanied migrant children are typically served an order to leave the country. If they do not leave the country, they may find themselves back in detention, no matter how vulnerable they are or whether they could have a claim for asylum. For instance, a 10-year-old unaccompanied Somali girl who was detained at Petrou Ralli detention facility told us that the Greek authorities detained her four times within six months.<\/p>\n

Greece is not alone in its mistreatment of asylum seekers entering the EU. Malta has a harsh policy of automatic detention for virtually all migrants who arrive irregularly in Malta (that is, not through an official port of entry).[iii]<\/a> While some migrants, including families, are released within hours or days, others are held for extended periods; asylum seekers can be held for up to a year and those denied asylum can be detained for up to 18 months.<\/p>\n

In Malta, we found that unaccompanied children are detained with unrelated adults pending the outcome of age determination examinations. Malta presumes that anyone who is not \u2018visibly\u2019 a child, meaning anyone who looks older than about 12, is an adult. Migrants claiming to be children must go through a prolonged age determination process and are locked up in an adult jail for weeks or months while the proceedings unfold.<\/p>\n

In detention facilities, children may be exposed to violence or exploitation. Abdi, a Somali asylum seeker who was 17 when he was detained, told HRW: \u201cEvery day a big man from Mali came and said, \u2018Give me your food.\u2019 And one day I said no and he hit me. I was out on the floor [unconscious] for half an hour. I told the [guards] but they said, \u2018We don\u2019t care\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other parts of the world asylum-seeking and refugee children fare no better. In Indonesia thousands of migrant children, especially unaccompanied children, from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Burma and elsewhere, face detention, mistreatment in custody, no access to education and little or no basic assistance. Indonesian law provides for up to ten years of immigration detention without judicial review, and the Indonesian government does not provide migrant children or their families opportunities to obtain legal status, such as to seek asylum. Indonesia frequently detains undocumented migrants, including unaccompanied children and children in families, for months or years in squalid conditions without access to education or, in some cases, outdoor recreation. We have documented cases of brutality in several facilities in which guards beat unaccompanied migrant children, or children are forced to watch while guards beat adults.<\/p>\n

Conditions for children who are detained along with their parents can be inhumane and degrading. We met a three-year-old boy in the Suan Phlu immigration detention centre (IDC) in Bangkok in Thailand who had spent almost his entire life in detention.[iv]<\/a> He was held with his father, a Somali refugee, while his mother was detained in the women\u2019s section of the IDC together with his sister. The boy\u2019s father described the conditions of detention:<\/p>\n

“The room has 50 occupants at the moment, most of whom are smokers. \u2026The room is hot and dirty which has caused the boy to be sick frequently. The diet for the boy consists of the same rice that everybody else eats. He needs fruits which are neither provided nor available for purchase. \u2026It is absolutely difficult for a boy of three years old to grow up amidst 50 grown-up men in a locked room and only allowed to go out for a short period of less than two hours in the sunshine after three days.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The toll of immigration detention on children is high. Children are often without access to education for months and years. Immigration detention \u2013 which often lacks clear time limits \u2013 takes its toll on the mental health of many detainees, and this problem is especially severe for children.[v]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a> A psychologist who volunteers at an immigration detention centre in Indonesia told HRW that his child clients experience psychological deterioration connected to the prolonged, ill-defined wait: \u201cThey lose hope, they lose dreams. There\u2019s no timeframe on when they can have a normal life and go outside as humans. It leads to hopelessness and depression.\u201d[vi]<\/sup><\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Limits to the use of immigration detention against children<\/strong><\/p>\n

In too many situations of immigration detention, states deprive children of their liberty as a routine response to illegal entry, rather than as a measure of last resort. Yet international law indicates that children should not be detained for reasons related to their migration status, and places strict limits on the exceptional use of detention:<\/p>\n