NOTE: This guest post was written by Roxane Heidrich. Roxane is a graduate student at the School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University. She is specializing in Global Negotiations & Conflict Management and International Security, with a research focus on international mediation, cross-cultural dialogue facilitation, and security issues.
“Migrations (…) are not a new phenomenon in humans’ history. They have left their mark on every age, bringing about the encounter of different cultures and giving rise to new civilizations” (Pope Francis)
New York. On Wednesday, February 21st 2018, the Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See, the International Catholic Migration Commission, the Caritas Internationalis, the Center for Migration Studies, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops co-organized the forum “Ending the Detention of Migrant and Refugee Children: Best Interest Determination and Alternatives to Detention.” The meeting was intended to be a side event in support of the ongoing negotiations on the Global Compact for Migration.
“Welcome, protect, promote, and integrate” are the four key actions that governments, policymakers, and communities should focus on in order to guarantee refugees and migrants a decent life, said Pope Francis in an introductory video. He emphasized the positive impact of migration on societies across the world and throughout history, calling for a responsible reaction from all communities involved. Against this backdrop, panelists and respondents focused on very specific aspects of migrant child detention and the alternatives to it.
“The best policy is no detention,” according to Mr. Donald M. Kervin Jr., Director of the Center for Migration Studies (CMS), New York. Today, an astonishing 51% of the world’s refugees are under age 18, he commented. There is an obligation to consistently develop alternatives to detention because public order, public well-being, and national security can be achieved as effectively by means of different strategies. “There is a need for sufficient alternatives, not for alternative forms of detention,” he concluded.
Health concerns have been raised too. Ted Chaiban, Director of Programmes at UNICEF, pointed out that regardless of the conditions, and even if it is for a short period of time, detention has a profound impact on children’s health. Depression, anxiety, PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), insomnia, and nightmares are among the most common reactions. Long-term effects on children’s growth have also been documented, as detention has been shown to be detrimental to both their physical and cognitive development.
The panelists did agree on one thing: detention is never in the best interest of children and has to be ended. “So why are we still not there?” asked Mr. Chaiban. The three most common arguments made against the abolition of migrant child detention are that detention works; that as a last resort, detention is acceptable; and that the alternatives to detention are not as effective. However, as Mr. Chaiban pointed out, none of them are valid because, as a matter of fact, imprisonment is the most expensive and harmful alternative while different approaches have already been successfully implemented in numerous cases around the world.
In Germany, for instance, detention related to migration does not exist. How then does Germany deal with the two million refugees it has welcomed within its borders in the last two-three years? Ambassador Jürgen Schulz from the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations explains that this is only possible thanks to the Country’s “Youth Welfare Office” (Jugendamt), a state-wide, centralized institution that deals with every single case of unaccompanied minor. Minors are taken charge of by social services, and according to their background, the children’s relocation is arranged in communities in which, for example, there are people who speak the same language or come from the same region.
But Germany is not the only example of progress being made. Ashley Feasley, Director of the Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, briefed the audience about services being offered at family detention facilities in Texas, such as access to legal services and counseling, information about the immigration process, and language access, the last of which is particularly relevant in that area of the country because of the high turnout of indigenous speakers from South America.
Closing remarks converged on accountability and responsibility for communal work. “Migration is not a crime. Detention is not a tool to resolve administrative challenges, and it is never a form of protection. It is rarely the case that it is used as a form of proportionality and it is often arbitrary and indefinite,” said Craig Mokhiber, Chief of the Development & Economic & Social Issues Branch (DESIB) at OHCHR. Michele Klein Solomon, Senior Policy Adviser to the Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), explained that the development of alternative solutions requires actions by multiple actors at multiple levels – at the state level, between governments, and in civil society.