Senior officials at the UN Refugee Agency (“UNHCR”) have raised concerns with the Home Office about the health and welfare of at least 35 children held at a centre in Calais.
The Guardian newspaper has reported that children who were forced to languish in hostels and foster homes in Calais for up to a year as they waited for the Home Office to transfer them to the UK 15 went on hunger strike and, in at least one instance, a child attempted suicide.
The majority of the unaccompanied minors had made applications under family reunification provisions enshrined in EU law known as the Dublin III regulation which must be acted upon within a specified length of time. Under the Sandhurst Treaty, France and the UK agreed that the UK should respond as quickly as possible but, in any event, in line with the timeframe of two months after France makes a “take charge request” to signify the child wants to be reunited with a family member in the UK. If the request is accepted By the UK authorities, they have six months to effect the transfer.
Some of the children have been waiting for several months, and possibly up to a year, first for a decision, and then for the transfer to the UK to take place. In the past two years there has been a 10-fold increase in the time it takes applicants to receive a response. The average wait for a positive response to a request by unaccompanied children in Calais to join families in the UK rose from 10.98 days in 2016 to 111.31 days according to a Home Office document. The average wait for a negative response has nearly quadrupled from 16.5 days to 63.44 days. Children who received a positive response saw the average wait time to be transferred to the UK increase from 26.11 days in 2016 to 198.44 days in 2018.
The email correspondence describing the situation in Calais was disclosed after the Home Office was forced to release the figures in a case brought at the upper tribunal immigration and asylum chamber, in which the department is being challenged over delays faced by three young refugees who were forced to wait months to be reunited with their families. The correspondence provides a snapshot of the desperate conditions faced by vulnerable children who arrive in Calais having made treacherous journeys across Europe from the Middle East, southern Asia and Africa. Having already experienced huge trauma, the minors are now facing inordinate lengths of time and uncertainty about the future.
The Home Office said it would not comment on individual cases or on ongoing legal proceedings, but the UK takes its responsibilities towards unaccompanied children extremely seriously.
