PRESS RELEASE: Refugee rights organizations call for an end to the detention of refugees and children

2 December 2011

The campaign is supported by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, the Supreme Bar Council, the Bulgarian Judges Association and others.

Bulgaria should end the detainment of refugees and child asylum-seekers as well as of any child solely for immigration purposes.

A group of non-governmental organisations expressed their request to end the detainment of refugees and child asylum-seekers in a joint letter, addressed to the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior and other government bodies and European institutions involved in shaping refugee policies. The letter is part of a European campaign launched by the International Detention Coalition, which is supported by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and Amnesty International.

The campaign was further supported by the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC), the Bulgarian Council on Refugees and Migrants, the Bulgarian Red Cross, Caritas Bulgaria, the Association for Integration of Refugees and Migrants, the Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria, the Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors (ACET), Foundation “Center Nadya”, the Supreme Bar Council and the Bulgarian Judges Association.

European Union (EU) institutions are currently negotiating on Commission proposals recasting the EU asylum acquis legislation. In this regard, the undersigned organizations urge EU member states to ensure that EU asylum legislation includes a clear ban on the detention of unaccompanied children asylum-seekers and the necessary guarantees to ensure that alternatives to detention are in place with a view to ending the detention of families with children.

This campaign was organized in commemoration of the 60^th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 50th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. A ministerial-level meeting of all Member States of the United Nations will take place on 7 - 8 December 2011, which will also be an opportunity for states to make specific commitments to improve protection and assistance for refugees and stateless persons.

The letter and the complete list of addressees are included below.

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UN Pledging Conference 7 - 8 December on the occasion of the commemoration of the Geneva Refugee Convention.

To:

Tsetska Tsacheva,

Chairwoman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria

Boris Velchev

Prosecutor General

Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Bulgaria

Margarita Popova

Minister of Justice

Ministry of Justice

Tsvetan Tsvetanov

Minister of Interior Affairs

Minister of Interior Affairs

Dragomir Stoynev

Chairman of the Labour and Social Policy Committee at the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria 

Boiko Kotsev

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary

Permanent Representative

Head of Permanent Representation of the Republic of Bulgaria to the European Union

COREPER-II

Plamen Angelov

Counsellor - Schengen, Migration, Borders, Asylum

Permanent Representation of the Republic of Bulgaria to the European Union

Evgeni Tanchev

Chairman of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria

Kemal Eyup,

Chairman of the Bulgarian Commission for Protection against Discrimination

Nikola Kazakov

Chairman of the State Agency for Refugees with the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria

Nadya Shabani,

Chairwoman of the State Agency for Child Protection

Ivaylo Ivanoc,

Executive Director of the Social Assistance Agency

Andrey Kovatchev

Member of the European Parliament

Antonia Parvanova

Member of the European Parliament

Vladimir Uruchev

Member of the European Parliament

Vladko Panayotov

Member of the European Parliament

Dimitar Stoyanov

Member of the European Parliament

Evgeni Kirilov

Member of the European Parliament

Emil Stoyanov

Member of the European Parliament

Ivaylo Kalfin

Member of the European Parliament

Iliyana Ivanova

Member of the European Parliament

Iliyana Yotova

Member of the European Parliament

Kristian Vigenin

Member of the European Parliament

Maria Nedelcheva

Member of the European Parliament

Stanimir Ilchev

Member of the European Parliament

Metin Kazak

Member of the European Parliament

Nadejda Neynski

Member of the European Parliament

Slavcho Binev

Member of the European Parliament

Dear Madam/Sir,

As you may know, a ministerial-level meeting of all Member States of the United Nations on 7 - 8 December 2011 in Geneva will commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 50^th anniversary of the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. This meeting will also be an opportunity for states to make forward-looking specific commitments to concretely improve protection and assistance for refugees and stateless persons. States as well as intergovernmental organisations such as the European Union can also pledge.

Bulgarian Council on Refugees and Migrants, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, Bulgarian Red Cross - Refugee and Migrant Service, Caritas Bulgaria, Association for Integration of Refugees and Migrants, Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria, Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors – ACET, Foundation "Centre Nadja", Bulgarian Judges Association and the Supreme Bar Council urge you to take this opportunity to commit to ending the detention of refugee and asylum-seeking children, as well as the detention of any child solely for immigration purposes. 

This letter is part of a global campaign launched by the International Detention Coalition and which is supported by the European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) and Amnesty International. [1]

Children, and in particular unaccompanied or separated children, should never be detained solely for immigration purposes given that immigration detention cannot be said to be in their best interests, ever. The detention of children solely for immigration purposes, whether they are unaccompanied, separated or held together with their family members, can never be justified and represents an abject failure of the obligation to respect, care for, and protect children’s human rights.

The devastating effects of immigration detention on the mental and physical health of both unaccompanied and separated children, as well as on children detained with their parents, have been evidenced beyond dispute. In particular, as they are separated from their parents or other primary caregivers, unaccompanied or separated children are particularly vulnerable and detention further compounds their vulnerability.

In fact, the trend in a number of EU Member States and other countries seems to be towards ending the detention of children solely for immigration purposes, and in particular of unaccompanied or separated children.[2] 

This positive development has been hastened by, among others, the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) arising from cases involving the detention of asylum-seeking children and other children solely for immigration purposes. This case law has rightly emphasised the extreme vulnerability of such children, in particular but not exclusively unaccompanied or separated children.[3] It should be noted that the Court not only found the detention of these children in violation of Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights (i.e. the right to liberty and security of person) but also that it amounted to a violation of Article 3 of the Convention (i.e. freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment).

Moreover, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights has emphasised that the protection of unaccompanied children, who sometimes disappear or risk being trafficked, could be strengthened through a number of measures without resorting to the deprivation of liberty, “simply by ensuring a sufficiently strict control by custodial institutions to the movement of the minors in their care”.[4]

States should invest more substantially in accommodation facilities that are better adapted to the “the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts”[5] as well as their right to education. All children, whether accompanied or unaccompanied should be able to enjoy these rights and to receive adequate care and protection.

The undersigning organisations call on states to end the detention of all children solely for immigration purposes. Where strictly necessary to limit the freedom of movement of families with children, alternatives to detention do exist and work as is for instance shown by the recent International Detention Coalition’s research into alternatives to immigration detention[6]  and by a recent study published by UNHCR[7].

At the same time, EU institutions are negotiating on Commission proposals recasting the EU asylum acquis that include important provisions relating to the detention of children. In this regard, we urge EU Member States to ensure that EU asylum legislation includes a clear ban on the detention of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and the necessary guarantees to ensure that alternatives to detention are in place with a view to ending the detention of families with children. The ongoing negotiations on the Asylum Package are a unique opportunity for the EU institutions and the Member States to set the standard and adopt a legal framework on the non-detention of asylum-seeking children that can be a model for other regions in the world. We believe this would be an important and significant step that would contribute to improving the situation of asylum-seeking children in the EU and an impressive contribution to the commemoration of the 60^th anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

We hope that you will be able to support this call that is made to all EU governments ahead of the Ministerial-level meeting in Geneva on 7 - 8 December 2011.

Yours sincerely,

Kina Sabeva - Chairperson, Bulgarian Council on Refugees and Migrants

Iliana Savova – Director, Refugee Migrant Unit, Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

Mariana Stoyanova - Head, Refugee and Migrant Service, Bulgarian Red Cross

Tzvetomir Dumanov – Executive Director, Caritas Bulgaria

Marinella Radeva – Chairperson, Association for Integration of Refugees and Migrants

Linda Awanis – Director, Council of Refugee Women in Bulgaria

Mimoza Dimitrova– Director, Assistance Centre for Torture Survivors – ACET

Rossanka Venelinova– Executive Director, Foundation "Centre Nadja"

Daniela Dokovska– Chairperson, Supreme Bar Council

Miroslava Todorova – Chairperson, Bulgarian Judges Association