Eternal Emergency No End to Unaccompanied migrant Children's Institutioanlization in Canary Islands Emergency Centers

This report examines the situation for unaccompanied migrant children in three large-scale emergency centers in the Canary Islands. It follows up on comprehensive research conducted on the Islands in January 2007, published in a July 2007 report: “Unwelcome Responsibilities: Spain’s Failure to Protect the Rights of Unaccompanied Migrant Children in the Canary Islands.”

three years later, the Canary Islands government continues to keep -what were deemed to be – emergency centers – open. At the time of our research, they housed 276 children, with 201 accommodated in large-scale facilities of 50 and more children. The authorities have not included the centers within the existing legal framework that defines minimum standards for temporary care nor have they established occupancy limits. As a result centers provide widely different conditions, including conditions that fall short of international and national standards.

Although these institutions were set up as a temporary response to the sudden arrival of a high number of unaccompanied children, he emergency centers are being used as permanent placements for children. Children’s stay in these facilities is not limited and the Canary Islands government has no definite plans to close the centers down. Out of the 25 children we interviewed, 10 had spent more than a year, six more than two years, and two boys had spent more than three years in an emergency center.

Conditions, practices, and the lack of safeguards against abuse mean that children’s rights under national and international law are not being met.