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Congo: Lost in Transit: Insufficient protection for unaccompanied migrant children at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport

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Source: Human Rights Watch
Country: Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Guinea, Lebanon, Nepal, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Albania, Comoros

I. Summary and Key Recommendations

The [airport] transit zone is an improvement for foreigners because they can exercise their rights before they even enter French territory. -Eric Besson, minister, Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Solidarity Development, May 11, 2009.

I said I didn't want to return. The [police] woman told me 'we will handcuff you...put you in the plane, and send you back to your country.' -Ousmane R. who arrived alone at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport at the age of 16 in June 2007.

From January 2008 to July 2009 around 1,500 migrant children arrived without a care-giver or parent at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and were denied entry. Physically present within France's geographical borders, but yet not "in" France according to French law, these children were detained by police in the so-called airport transit zone.

Some of these children were trafficked, some were fleeing persecution in their home countries, and some were arriving to join family members. But instead of receiving protection, they faced degrading treatment by police, detention with adults, little protection from traffickers, barriers to filing asylum, and a rapid screening system procedurally stacked against children being able to properly make a claim to stay in France. Around 30 percent were subsequently deported to their country of origin or to a country through which they had transited on their journey to France, regardless of whether they had family or any ties there, or continued their journey to an onward destination. The others were granted access to France.

The treatment of unaccompanied child migrants at Roissy Charles de Gaulle has significance beyond France. As France's principal and Europe's second largest airport, it serves 60 million passengers yearly, making it a main entry point into Europe's borderless zone, the Schengen area. It counts more than half a million aircraft movements per year, connecting 470 destinations in 110 countries. The airport is also a major stopover point for long-haul flights crossing through Europe.

France, like any sovereign state, has a legitimate interest in controlling its borders and in screening persons who seek entry. However, these interests do not permit it to place children at risk of harm. France's treatment of unaccompanied migrant children in airport transit zones violates its obligations under international law and should be immediately reformed.

Contrary to binding rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, and to opinions of United Nations bodies, the French government holds on to a legal fiction that the airport transit zone implies some kind of extra-territorial status. As a consequence, unaccompanied children held at the airport and denied entry to France are subject to a different legal regime than children "on French territory." In practice, this means children in transit zones have far fewer rights because their status as migrants trumps their rights as children.

Children may face intimidating or even abusive behavior from some police officers when they arrive. Human Rights Watch documented cases in which police coerced children as young as six into signing papers they did not understand. Police routinely use handcuffs and strip-searches on children. Some children interviewed by Human Rights Watch had been kept for an entire day locked up at airport terminals, during which time the police restricted their access to the toilet.

At a time when children feel insecure and in need of trustworthy information and assistance, Human Rights Watch found that police would also routinely threaten children with deportation. In cases documented by Human Rights Watch, police deliberately refused some children their entitlement to the 24 hour protection from deportation provision and decided on children's behalf that they wanted to depart "as soon as possible." Police requested intrusive age exams for children who were self evidently under eighteen.


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