Spain accused of keeping migrant children in 'punishment' cells
Friday, 27 July 2007
Print
Email
An international human rights group sharply criticised Spain yesterday, saying that it was keeping migrant African children in appalling conditions-including in windowless "punishment" cells where they are beaten and denied access to lavatories.
The report, by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said the abuses took place in holding facilities on the Canary Islands, which have been swamped by a surge in African migration in recent years.
The group said more than 900 children were kept in overcrowded and poor conditions in four emergency centres on the islands, which lie off the north-west coast of Africa and are a popular destination for Africans seeking a toe-hold in Europe. Those immigrants who are caught are returned to their home countries, but the process can take months.
Simone Troller, a European children's rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, and the author of the report, said that under Spanish law migrant children were not technically allowed to be detained.
But in practice, she said, they were "kept in almost prison-like conditions". "They are not allowed to leave the centres on their own. They have to stay in the compounds and sometimes you have young children mixed with old children," Ms Troller said. The Canary Islands' regional government denounced the report as sloppy, saying that its own investigation had uncovered no evidence of such abuses. It said the conclusions were "based on uncorroborated testimony from the children and without, at any moment, identifying those allegedly responsible".
There was no immediate comment from the national government in Madrid. Although the detention centres were set up by the national government, the regional government handles the daily running of the compounds.
The children detailed in the report - aged between 10 and 17 - were among 30,000 immigrants who arrived illegally on the Canary Islands last year aboard packed fishing boats from north and west Africa.
The report describes what the children called "a punishment cell"-a filthy, windowless and airless room where some said that they were beaten and locked up for several days, and where they had to urinate and defecate on the floor. In another centre, children reported that one staff member had sexually abused them.
"We're not suggesting widespread sexual abuse but there are allegations that should be investigated," Ms Troller said.
She also said that many children were held without having their cases reviewed by the government.
