AYS Daily Digest 12/05/2021: Spain wants to strengthen child protection

Senate votes in favor to stop examination of genitals of minors // Worries about mental health on Lesvos // Berlin halts vaccination of refugees and homeless // Worsening situation in Italy and France

Minor’s rights were strengthened by the Spanish Senate. Credits: Twitter/@DrAZoubeidi

Spain

The Senate on Tuesday gave the green light to a new law, that children arriving in Spain do not need to undress to have examined their genitals to determine their age, El Pais reports.

Thirty minors under guardianship protested in Melilla against restricted access to their rights: that authorities work on their cases before they turn 18.

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Grecce

Journalist Franziska Grillmeier highlights the mental struggles many people are facing on Lesvos with despair and no perspectives. “People from the camp of Mavrovouni tell us almost on a daily basis about sleep disorder, depression and the attempt to harm themselves”, she writes after a 19-year-old Syrian committed suicide. Since December 2020 three people have spoken of having such thoughts.

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At the same time, the Moria Awarness Team speaks about a worsening situation in terms of coronavirus. For now, they have managed to speed up distribution to provide all the families at the camp with basic supplies.

After he tried to rescue a capsizing boat in December 2020, Mohamad H. is facing a trial and possibly two life sentences as two people died when the boat capsized. Borderline Europe is following the case.

The Greek minister for migration, Notis Mitarachi, suggested that Frontex should operate outside EU’s waters to prevent migrations.

Human Rights 360 analyzed the case file of a murder from 2013 for the racist behavior of the Hellenic police: “It is evident without a doubt that not only the systematic under-recording of racist motives but also the constant impunity of the perpetrators conceal significant responsibilities for the prosecuting authorities during the period in question.”

Sea

Sea-Watch revealed new footage documenting how Frontex cooperated in pull-backs to Libya with the so-called Libyan Coast Guard with aircrafts. “The European Union is complicit in illegal returns to Libya and enables human rights violations,” concludes Sea-Watch. Further Frontex is criticized, that it repeatedly refuses to cooperate with other vessels, which could have rescued people in distress.

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Following an emergency Alarm Phone call, 42 survivors, who were returned to Libya on Monday, claimed up to 24 people dead. One body was found, and 23 are still missing. More than 700 people were intercepted only Sunday alone. As the weather conditions are improving, more arrivals are being counted, SOS Mediterranee writes in its bulletin.

Nine people were rescued off Gibraltar by Salvamento Maritimo, according to La Verdad de Ceuta.

In other cases, more than 150 people are still missing, writes Canarias7.

Italy

Italy once again asks the European Union for solidarity, after more than 2000 people have arrived last weekend. As of 10 May, almost 13,000 people have arrived this year, as InfoMigrants tells us. Most of them have come to Sicily. Totò Martello, Lampedusa’s mayor told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that more and bigger boats with up to 300 people were arriving recently.

Meanwhile, the 2000 people who arrived on Lampedusa are still stuck. Some of them needed to sleep rough, Stol reports. Apparently, authorities want to transfer them to quarantine ships, but with the rough weather that was not recently possible. At the same time, the government seeks help for relocating them to other EU countries.

Volunteers of Kesha Niya are seeing strict police controls at the train stations from Ventimiglia to France. “Often, only two train doors are opened, and police officers control the documents of anyone who wants to enter,” they write. Additionally, conditions onsite are getting rougher with evictions of squatted buildings, camp structures being removed and people left in the open.

Germany

As several municipalities in Germany lack of COVID vaccine supplies, Berlin will suspend its prioritization of staff and residents of refugee and homeless facilities, the Senate of Berlin announced on Monday. Initially, they were in priority group 2. Instead, the 13,000 doses will be made available for employees of the city administration. “This distribution is a scandal,” criticized Manfred Nowak from the AWO charity, which runs six refugee centers in Berlin.

The health of city staff is being prioritized over the health of those in the AWO facilities. Eleven percent of the staff already had COVID compared to four percent on average. He announced that his charity will try to organize vaccines at their own expense.

Health Policy Watch recently warned, that excluding uprooted people from vaccine campaigns undermines Global Health and Safety, as people in camps are usually more exposed to the risk of being infected.

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On the other hand, only 20 percent of asylum seekers living in reception centers ask to be vaccinated, according to the state government of Lower Saxony. The situation in other federal states is similar. As reason a spokesperson named skepticism along with not seeing severe cases in their surroundings. Another argument was a general mistrust of vaccines. Hence, a publicity campaign is planned, writes InfoMigrants.

Due to the International Day of Families, Protestant and Catholic Churches in Germany demanded more support on family reunifications, InfoMigrants reports. Especially people with subsidiary protection struggle with legal restrictions to apply for reunions. In 2020 only 5300 relatives of them were granted family reunion — also due to travel restrictions during the pandemic. On Saturday, the Initiative Family Reunion Eritrea organizes a protest on Saturday.

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Christopher Hein, an expert in migration politics at Luiss University in Rome, told DLF, that Germany should take a more active role in European migration policies. He assumes that the number of sea crossings will increase over the next months and suggests a closer collaboration with Libya.

France

The legal centre in Calais posted an analysis of discriminatory and racist police identity checks on people on 5 May, which it describes as “hunt” for foreigners. “By questioning the validity of the presence of individuals in the public space, by conditioning their freedom to come and go on the presentation of documents, they illustrate the repressive, security and freedom-killing policy of the State”, the analysis states and it criticizes the polices’ proud communications over Twitter. This goes along with the fact, that a man perceived as “black or Arab” is 20 times more likely to be checked.

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Four people tried to make it to the UK using oars and paddles and were rescued by the French authorities. A little before that, 29 people were picked up, Infomigrants reports.

Some 60 volunteers and locals gathered in the morning near public places in Grande-Synthe to protest the eviction of a new camp with up to 500 people.

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Veterans who have been talking about the threat of a “civil war” in France and “maintaining order” on their own if such a war breaks out have been widely criticized. “A firm reminder will be made by the command on the respect of duty,”one officer responded, speaking to AFP.

EU

There have been 2612 pushbacks at different European borders counted by the Protecting Rights and Borders (PRAB), a network of nine organizations. In a statement they add that this is happening on a bigger scale, as it is challenging to document such cases. Most occurred from Croatia to Bosnia, including 176 chain pushbacks. Every fourth reported denial of access to asylum, physical abuse/assault or theft, extortion or destruction of property. Prab concludes:

Pushbacks continue to be systematically used by EU Member States and neighboring countries.

At least for Greece, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe demanded an investigation into such allegations. “The way in which these operations are reportedly carried out would clearly be incompatible with Greece’s human rights obligations,” Dunja Mijatović said.

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