Fitzgerald says keeping child refugees in cages unacceptable

Keeping children in cages is unacceptable, Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald has said.

She was referring to instances she had seen in Greece where authorities, trying to cope with large numbers of unaccompanied children arriving from Syria and other areas of conflict, had accommodated them in cages.

"This was, they said, for their own safety, but that is not a good response by any stretch. Solidarity is very important. Greece and Italy cannot do it on their own."

Speaking at a conference on Ireland’s response to the global refugee crisis, hosted by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC), Ms Fitzgerald said there were about 65 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, of which 21 million were refugees. Children under 18 make up half the refugee population.

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“The scale of the problem demands a global response. Sadly we are seeing such a disappointing and disproportionate response to the biggest challenge of our time from some quarters.”

She was always struck, she said, that the hopes parents had for their children were the same the world over. “They want them to do well.”

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She had recently been in Dublin Airport welcoming refugees arriving from Greece. “The very first thing mothers asked was, ‘When can my children start school?’ The very first thing they asked.”

Ireland could be proud of its contribution, she said, which was "multi-faceted". Though Ireland was not "on the frontline" like Greece and Italy, it was contributing to the search-and-rescue mission in the Mediterranean as well as €7.5 million to the UN refugee agency and €1.2 million to refugee programmes in South Sudan this year. It is also giving €3 million, from 2016-2020, to the EU's emergency trust fund for Africa.

More than 80 people were arriving here from refugee camps every month, with 86 due in the next fortnight from Greece. Ireland would meet its commitment under the EU programme to relocate 1,100 refugees from Greece by September, it was pointed out.

IHREC chief commissioner Emily Logan said at least 10,000 unaccompanied children had disappeared in Europe since arriving from conflict zones such as Syria.

"Sadly, there are a number of children who have become icons of war and conflict. We remember the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi face down at the water's edge on a beach in Turkey.

Vulnerability

“We remember the image of five-year-old

Omran

Daqneesh, sitting in the back of an ambulance, staring numbly and coated in dirt and blood – reminding the world of its numbness to the tragedy ripping apart Syria’s ancient city of

Aleppo

and the devastating effects of conflict and war on children and families.”

These images emphasised the “vulnerability of children” and the reality that they were “entirely reliant on others for support”, she said.

Ireland’s family reunification programme was too restrictive and this was “likely to cause considerable hardship for refugee families”, Ms Logan added.

“The eligibility of families is restricted to certain family members – spouses, civil partners and children. Where the applicant is under 18 years of age, their parents, and siblings under 18 who are unmarried. No other family members will be eligible for family reunification.”

It was an area the commission would continue to campaign on, she said, “in line with our earlier recommendations to ensure that a full range of family relationships, as protected by the European Convention on Human Rights, are fully vindicated”.