The Holy See’s Commitment to Protect Unaccompanied Children on the Move

Abstract

Background: Unaccompanied children on the move are the most vulnerable group in the refugee criteria because they move without the protection of parents as well as family members. They are the most fragile because they are often invincible, voiceless and they are faced to great risks such as human traffickers, sexual predators and other persons with harm. With the escalating conflict in several part of the world, there is a growing number of unaccompanied children on the move and too few being done to accommodate them. Objective: This paper is trying to see how the Holy See as a transnational actor tries to promote a better care for the refugees and providing better treatment and protection for unaccompanied children on the move. Results: The Holy See has been promoting social cooperation through solidarity and shared responsibility to protect the unaccompanied children on the move using its transnational influence. Conclusion: With its unique transnationality, the Holy See is working as the role of mediation between different cultures and socio political system to better protect the fundamental rights of unaccompanied children on the move. Introduction On September 3rd, 2015 the world was shocked by a horrific image of a washed ashore body of a three-year-old Syrian refugee, named Alan Kurdi on the beach near Bodrum, Turkey. Alan Kurdi drowned while crossing Mediterranean Sea with his parents, trying to flee Syria. The case of Alan Kurdi shed a new light on the case of refugee crisis, and most importantly, his tragic death brought upon a seemingly forgotten issue that children are the most vulnerable group of refugees. The number of child refugee increased dramatically with the escalating instability throughout the world, especially in the Middle East and Africa regions. While fleeing, children are often left unaccompanied by their adult relatives, posing a greater threat to an already vulnerable child refugee. Since the death of Alan Kurdi, more attentions are put to ensure the wellbeing of unaccompanied children on the move. One of the actors that have been increasing its effort on protecting them is the International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 9 , No. 3, March, 2019, E-ISSN: 2 22 2 -6990 © 2019 HRMARS 413 Holy See. Since 2015, the Holy See has been actively promoting better protections and treatments for those children through various international forums both as a special political entity and as an international religious entity. The dual status allows the Holy See to have a more effective impact in promoting a better care for those children. This article is aimed at explaining how does the Holy See‘s unique transnationality can be more effective in promoting a better protection and treatment for the unaccompanied children on the move. The case of unaccompanied children on the move in this article is focused during the refugee crisis caused by the increasing instability in the Middle East from 2014 to 2017 where these children are then seeking asylum in the Europe as the bordering region. Methodology Unaccompanied children on the move, or sometimes referred to as unaccompanied migrant children, is a term used in the 1989 Convention of the Rights of the Child to describe children that is separated from their parents or other adult relatives and are not being cared for by an adult responsible in doing so (IOM, 2011). Later in 2008, UNICEF categorizes the ―children on the move‖ as migrating children to another country searching for opportunities without prior authorization, exploited children through trafficking and children fleeing dangerous situation to seek asylum (Boland, 2010). Unaccompanied children on the move then is used to point a specific category in the refugee group as children fleeing dangerous situation to seek asylum without supervision from their parents or any adults legally responsible for their well-being. In this article, the use of the terms children will then refer to this specific category. In recent years, the number of these specific groups increases significantly in accordance with the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. With the refugees’ surge in the neighbouring region, also came the surge of these children. According to the Eurostat (Eurostat, 2016), the surge of refugees in Europe began in 2015 with over a million Middle Eastern seek for an asylum. The number kept increasing with the estimated 1,25 million more refugees came to Europe in 2016. This number is highly significant compared to what was recorded in 2014 where only 216,000 refugees came for shelter and there are only 23,160 unaccompanied children on the move (UNICEF, 2015). As recorded in 2015 and 2016, out of 2.5 million, 29% of them are children and approximately 176,000 of them are considered to be unaccompanied migrant children. The majority of these children are adolescent boys in the age of 12 to 17. It was estimated that 6 out of 10 refugees in Europe are coming from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. The number of refugees coming to Europe is showing an increase, also the relative proportion of child refugee. The growing number of unaccompanied children on the move has brought new concerns about the well-being of child refugees in their attempt to seek a better living environment. There are more threats to these children since they are moving cross borders without proper supervision. These children are more vulnerable to sexual violence, sexual exploitation, and trafficking (European Comission, 2016). During their migratory journey, these children are also prone to robbery and the accusation of petty crimes to keep themselves alive (IOM, 2011). They also have to overcome serious physical challenges, illnesses, injuries and even death while trying to cross difficult terrains or rough seas (IOM & UNICEF, 2015). According to Monsignor Robert Vitillo, Secretary General to the International Catholic Migration Commission, these children also face great risks of being a victim of organ harvesting syndicate, child labor and early marriage phenomenon (Schlein, 2017). International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences Vol. 9 , No. 3, March, 2019, E-ISSN: 2 22 2 -6990 © 2019 HRMARS 414 These threats are faced not just when the children are on the move, but also when they are at the detention centre in the destination country. Detention centre is a very dangerous environment for these children since there are no proper health care, education or even housing facilities. The use of detention centres in dealing with child refugees especially unaccompanied children on the move have caused a great debate in this recent years. Children and adult detainees are put in the same place. In here, those children are left to fend for themselves, they are voiceless without any access to legal or other appropriate assistance (Bhabha, 2016). Children under the age of 18 are not considered legal to make their own decision or to apply for as asylum, so they are usually automatically be put in the detention centres. These children did not have any proper legal assistance needed to apply for an asylum. Seeing the danger of detention centres, many experts believed that the option to be detained should only be used as a measure of last resort for these children (IOM, 2011). The lack of proper facilities for children in the detention centres also violates the Children’s Rights as stated in the Convention of the Rights of the Child (UNICEF, 2017) where all children have the right to be protected from harm, obtain essential health care and education services, be with their families and have their best interests guide decisions that affect them. Improvements in urgently needed to provide better protection and treatment for these children, especially their social aspect since they are still in the crucial mental growth phase. And the strains that were caused by the risks faced by these children left them with greater risk because they lack the drive to set out in to the world (IOM, 2017). One of the major actors that put a lot of attention to the welfare of refugee is the Holy See. The Holy See has specifically urged for an improvement on the protection of the rights of unaccompanied children on the move by making a formal remarks on the United Nations‘ Human Rights Council panel discussion on June 9, 2017 (Radio Vaticana, 2017). According to Archbishop Ivan Jurkovič, The Vatican s Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva, the detention model for unaccompanied children on the move is wrong because these children do not have any control or responsible for the situations they are experiencing now. He added that by putting these children in the detention centre is the failure of international community to guarantee the fulfilment of these children’s basic right. On the behalf of the Holy See, he appealed to the international community that the responsibility to protect the dignity and fundamental rights of each person, especially unaccompanied children, must be a primary consideration of all international communities. Furthermore, he added that in the case of unaccompanied children on the move, they must be considered as a child first and foremost and that their best interest must be a primary consideration. In providing a better protection and treatment for those children, the Holy See is putting an emphasis on solidarity and shared responsibility. This emphasis is based on Pope John Paul II remarks made in 1981 on Refugee Crisis (Vatican.va, 2017a). He pointed out that refugee has always existed through the course of history, even stated in the holy Bible, as a result of tensions between different cultural and ethnic groups, and between individual right and the power of the state that led to war and persecution. Thus giving an individual, a choice of expulsion and flight. Detention centres, to him, is a place of individual and collective sufferings where people lost their dignity and me