Hungary City of Refugee Children

June 6, 2009

Comment: The article describes the situation of refugee children at the Debrecen refugee camp (East Hungary): most of them are not attending school at all, but are aimlessly wandering about. Why? Because authorities point their fingers at each other for responsibility. The city of Debrecen should be responsible for placing the children in the school: there is only one within the district limits and that one has no more capacity. In addition they receive no funding from the central government for the education of these refugee kids. The central government’s ruling recently provided some funds, but only for children enrolled in schools until 2008, not after.

Even the children attending school have a lot of obstacles to overcome: they are placed in special classes to learn Hungarian and only a few make the exam to be integrated in regular classes. Most children in the camp come from Kosovo and have almost no history of schooling: they require special attention to be able to get accustomed to the rigors of formal education and they would also need a mix of Albanian and Hungarian language instruction. Authorities simply open their arms, saying it is hard to work with children whose families may move on anytime, but they do not see their own responsibility for the well-being of these children.

This long article in Nepszabadsag, the most famous daily newspaper in Hungary, describes quite well the situation of the foreign children living in the camp and the gaps of the response from the authorities in charge. But unfortunately, the orientation of the article remains neutral, without making clear references to the obligations of the State regarding the rights of these children, according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC).

Regrettably, this kind of neutral analysis of the situation of foreign children is common in the European media. The obvious risk is to consider the breach of children’s rights as acceptable, only because these children are not nationals. While the UNCRC, legally binding instrument, makes it clear: any foreign child has the same rights than a national. Obviously less effort is made to protect young migrants, and the services are not adapted to their special needs. An unacceptable situation spread over the whole Europe.

The original article (in Hungarian) can be found here
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