"Missing refugee and migrant children in Europe"

We know that refugees are one of the issues that have subjected the European Union to its toughest test in recent years. In the face of refugees, the EU recently experienced a complete collapse, with all its values, criteria and quality of governance.

Admittedly, if I may say so, we must appreciate at this point that the AB was not failing to foresee this danger. There was a foresight about what several successive waves of refugees could do to a whole Union, and they had begun to build thick security walls around the entire welfare society they had created and its geography.

High security walls and the mentality behind them were a measure the AB erected, above all, against refugees. For, contrary to all of today's claims, Europe's past has very dark pages on xenophobia, fascism and the exploitation of human beings. Only seventy years ago there was a European experience that attributed the cause of all economic problems to minorities, the Jews and the Gypsies, attempted to liquidate them in the most merciless manner, and did not hesitate to subject millions of people to genocide along that road.

Refugees are a tough test for Europe, and again it must be appreciated that within the AB, Germany in particular is a country that has tried to learn lessons from these painful past experiences and has made considerable effort not to fall into the same situation. That is why today, whatever anyone says, it has admitted more than one million refugees to its territory with a commendable performance in accepting Syrian refugees. It did so while accepting the risks of problems such as the xenophobia these refugees would cause in its country and the rise of right-wing political discourse.

However, although the other AB countries did not share the same burden and responsibility in this matter, xenophobia and right-wing movements nevertheless did not stop rising there as well.

Refugees seek shelter in a country in their most vulnerable state, searching only for the basic means sufficient for their survival. In this state they are extremely disadvantaged people. Their legal status is uncertain; psychologically they are already weak and crushed, in the position of victims and the oppressed. That is why refugeehood has been regarded as a human right, and insisting on a certain quality in the treatment of refugees has come to be considered an international norm.

Of course, refugees do not have only the problem of finding bread and food; they also face a serious problem of vulnerability regarding ensuring their own safety. Because they are weakened by the administrations of the very countries in which they take refuge, they may find themselves, for example, unable to protect their own children.

Istanbul Deputy Serap Yaşar, as a Member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (AKPM), prepared a report investigating the situation of Missing Refugee and Migrant Children in Europe, proceeding from the information, in a report the European Police Organization (Europol) prepared in early 2016, that more than 10 thousand refugee children had gone missing after arriving in AB countries. The report she prepared was put to a vote and adopted in the AKPM General Assembly.

On the present ground of the AB, where Serap Yaşar prepared this report, the number of missing refugee children identified in Germany alone between 2017 and 2019 is above 11 thousand. This figure came to 6 thousand in France; nearly 20 thousand in Italy within 2018-2019; 9218 in Spain in 2018 alone; 4659 in Sweden between 2009 and 2019; 1600 in the Netherlands between 2015 and 2019; 1337 in England between 2015 and 2016. Assessed together with all the other countries, it is estimated that a child goes missing in Europe almost every two minutes, and globally it is reported that one registered migrant child goes missing or dies per day.

This is truly a terrifying figure. It is a very painful picture showing what kind of assault, in silence, refugees are subjected to in the European countries where they take refuge. On top of the pains they left behind, other pains strike the refugee in the country where he took refuge.. How do these children go missing? Who abducts them, for what purposes do they use the children? It can immediately be guessed that some of them fall into the hands of organ mafias; to what kinds of abuse are the others subjected?

The report prepared by Serap Yaşar pursues all these questions. The report emphasizes that the UN has reported that between 2014 and 2018, worldwide, one registered migrant child per day was dead or missing, that this figure is only the visible tip of the iceberg and that most of the disappearances are not recorded. It states that children need special protection against dangers, including violence, sexual abuse, human trafficking and exploitation.

It also reminds that all Council of Europe member states are parties to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and therefore must provide all the protection and care necessary for the well-being of children, regarding the best interests of the child as the primary consideration, and in this context it recommends that member states fulfill certain responsibilities. For this, of course, it emphasizes that the basic rights and needs must be met, taking into account the special requirements concerning the protection of children.

Of course, foremost among all the measures that can be taken is a change in the perspective on refugees and the consideration of refugeehood as a human situation that can befall anyone at any time.

With this perspective, a more empathetic approach to the refugee, a legal approach that acknowledges more of his rights, will give the refugee an initiative with which he can protect and look after both himself and his children. Otherwise the exploitation of refugee children, treated as a kind of industrial product, cannot be prevented. No good will come, either to itself or to humanity, from a civilization that kills children.

I congratulate Serap Yaşar for working on such a humanitarian issue and getting it voted on and adopted in AKPM.