Author
Under Greek law, any authority detecting the entry of an unaccompanied or separated child into the Greek territory shall take the appropriate measures to inform the closest Public Prosecutor’s office, the National Centre for Social Solidarity (Εθνικό Κέντρο Κοινωνικής Αλληλεγγύης, EKKA), the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors or any other competent authority for the protection of unaccompanied and/or separated children[1]. According to IPA, before the amendment by L.4756/2020,[2] the General Directorate of Social Solidarity of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs was responsible for further initiating and monitoring the procedure of appointing a guardian to the child and ensuring that his or her best interests are met at all times[3]. However, since the entry into force of L.4756/2020, the responsible authority for the procedure of guardianship of unaccompanied children is the Directorate for the Protection of the Child and the Family of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs in collaboration with the National Centre for Social Solidarity (EKKA) or other authorities.[4]
L 4554/2018 introduced for the first time a regulatory framework for the guardianship of unaccompanied children in Greek law. According to the new law, a guardian will be appointed to a foreign or stateless person under the age of 18 who arrives in Greece without being accompanied by a relative or non-relative exercising parental guardianship or custody. The Public Prosecutor for Minors or the local competent Public Prosecutor, if no Public Prosecutor for minors exists, is considered as the temporary guardian of the unaccompanied minor. This responsibility includes, among others, the appointment of a permanent guardian of the minor.[5] The guardian of the minor is selected from a Registry of Guardians created under the National Centre for Social Solidarity (Εθνικό Κέντρο Κοινωνικής Αλληλεγγύης, EKKA).[6] Also, the law provides a best interest of the child determination procedure following the issuance of standard operational procedure to be issued.[7] The law also creates the Supervisory Guardianship Board, which will be responsible for ensuring legal protection for unaccompanied children with respect to disabilities, religious beliefs and custody issues.[8] Additionally, the law established the Department for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors at EKKA, which had the responsibility of guaranteeing safe accommodation for unaccompanied children and evaluating the quality of services provided in such accommodation.[9] However, since the amendment of IPA by L.4686/2020 and later by L.4760/2020, the authority responsible for the accommodation of unaccompanied minors is the Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors of Ministry of Migration and Asylum.[10]
Under Article 18 L 4554/2018, the guardian has responsibilities relevant to the integration of unaccompanied children, which include:
- ensuring decent accommodation in special reception structures for unaccompanied children;
- representing and assisting the child in all judicial and administrative procedures;
- accompanying the child to clinics or hospitals;
- guaranteeing that the child is safe during their stay in the country;
- ensuring that legal assistance and interpretation services are provided to the child;
- providing access to psychological support and health care when needed;
- taking care of enrolling the child in formal or non-formal education;
- taking necessary steps to assign custody of the child to an appropriate family (foster family), in accordance with the applicable legal provisions;
- ensuring that the child’s political, philosophical and religious beliefs are respected and freely expressed and developed; and
- behaving with sympathy and respect to the unaccompanied child.
In practice, the system of guardianship is still not operating. According to the initial version of L. 4554/2018 (Art. 32), the Guardianship Law should have entered into force at the time that the Ministerial Decision approving the Rules of Procedure of the Supervision Board provided by Art. 19(6) L. 4554/2018 would be issued. Following an amendment introduced in May 2019 (Art. 85(2) L. 4611/2019, Gov. Gazette Α 73/17.5.2019), the entry into force of L. 4554/2018 has been postponed until the 1st of September 2019. However, the entry into force of L. 4554/2018 has been further postponed until the 1st of March 2020 (Art. 73 (1) L. 4623/2019, Gov. Gazette Α 134/9.8.2019).[11] By the end of March 2021, the system was not in place.
Temporary guardians had been appointed at the end of 2020 only for cases of unaccompanied minors who were eligible for the relocation scheme. However, this system cannot substitute the system of guardianship provided by Law. Those temporary guardians were authorized only to proceed with the necessary arrangements of the BIA and the security interviews, while in 2021 their mandate broadened, allowing them to follow up with the minors’ applications of international protection and have a whole overview of their beneficiaries’ well-being. However, the above network of temporary guardians run by the NGO METAdrasi stopped operating on 23 August 2021, creating a gap in the continuation of the representation before the competent authorities of those unaccompanied minors who had benefited of it.[12]
In May 2019, the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe, following a collective complaint lodged by ECRE and ICJ, with the support of GCR, adopted its Decision on Immediate Measures, and indicated to the Greek Authorities, inter alia, to immediately appoint effective guardians.[13] Greek Authorities had not complied with said Decision by the end of March 2021.
The fact that the public sector is severely untrained and understaffed hinders the situation even more. Especially, assigning this additional task of guardianship to prosecutors has proved to be disastrous over the years, especially given the number of prosecutors and their actual workload as prosecuting authorities.[14]
Several civil society organisations mention that “Unaccompanied children are not immediately appointed a guardian for the purposes of reception and identification procedures. However, at different times in recent years, on the basis of a general authorisation of guardians coordinated by METAdrasi by public prosecutors, unaccompanied children on Lesvos, Chios, Leros and Kos have been able to be accompanied by guardians during the aforementioned procedure before Frontex. The presence of guardians has had visible impact on the transparency of the registration of the individuals’ personal details, including declared age”.[15]
Despite the welcome development of the legal framework under L 4554/2018, the proper implementation of the guardianship system should be further monitored. The Greek Ombudsman noted in his Observations on the draft bill on Law 4636/2019 that there are several provisions, which may complicate the protection of migrant children and hinder the implementation of existing legislation. According to this report, there is a concerning lack of clarity in the definitions of unaccompanied and separated children, uncertainty over the competent services, and absence of any reference to the Guardianship Law 4554/2018 and secondary legislation setting out age assessment procedures [16]. Despite the fact that the new L. 4756/2020 amending IPA introduces a direct reference to the Guardianship Law 4554/2018 and includes more details on the responsibilities of the competent authorities, there are still several issues to be addressed.
The total number of applications for international protection lodged by unaccompanied minors before the Asylum Service in 2021 is not available.
On 6 April 2021, the Ministry of Migration and Asylum and UNHCR, in collaboration with IOM and the NGOs Arsis, METAdrasi and the Network for Children’s Rights, launched a mechanism to rapidly identify unaccompanied children who are homeless or live in insecure conditions and transfer them to safe accommodation. The mechanism includes a 24/7 telephone hotline for identifying and tracing children in need, available in six languages.[17] According to GCR’s observations, the new mechanism is very responsive to requests addressed both by NGO’s and by UAMs themselves.
[1] Article 60(1) IPA.
[2] L. 4756/2020, Gov. Gazette A’ 235/26-11-2020.
[3] See Article 32(1) & (2) IPA and Article 60(3) IPA (before the entry into force of L.4686/2020), article 60(4) IPA (after the entry into force of L. 4686/2020).
[4] Articles 13 and 14 L.4756/2020 amending respectively articles 32 and 60 IPA.
[5] Article 16 L 4554/2018.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Article 21 L 4554/2018.
[8] Article 19 L 4554/2018.
[9] Article 27 L 4554/2018.
[10] The Special Secretariat for the Protection of Unaccompanied Minors was established with 1(3) of the Presidential Degree 18/2020.It operates according to Articles 35 and 42 L. 4622/2019 and reports directly to the Minister of Migration and Asylum, https://bit.ly/3fMN5jn. Article 32(4) IPA and Article 60(3) IPA.
[11] Response by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) to the Observations of the Greek Government on the Merits of Collective Complaint 173/2018.
[12] The relevant press release by METAdrasi NGO available at: https://bit.ly/3DcexB1.
[13] European Committee on Social Rights, Decision on admissibility and on immediate measures, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) v. Greece, Complaint No. 173/2018, 23 May 2019.
[14] Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Children Cast Adrift: Exclusion and exploitation of unaccompanied minors (UAMs) in Greece (2019), available at: https://bit.ly/2y9sEd3.
[15] RSA and other civil society organisations, as above, 24.
[16] Response by the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and European Council for Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) to the Observations of the Greek Government on the Merits of Collective Complaint 173/2018.
[17] Ministry of Migration and Asylum, 6 April 2021, available at: https://bit.ly/3JGUhJk.