(Friday, 22 June 2012) -- A new report reveals the situation of unaccompanied migrant children detained in filthy, overcrowded cells in a detention centre near at the Greek-Turkish border. 

The report, written by the Greek Refugee Council, is based on visits conducted between March 2011 and March 2012 to the Fylakeio detention centre. It is published to coincide with a campaign by the International Detention Coalition to end the detention of children in Greece and around the world. 

Children were crowded into rooms, nearly 100 at a time, and left with few toilet facilities and broken sewage systems. Hot water was rarely available. Medical and psychological was nearly non-existent. Children neither had access to telephones, entertainment, activities, and to persons who might help them such as lawyers and social assistants. 

"Reading the report, its hard to believe that its describing a situation in an EU country", says Philip Amaral of Jesuit Refugee Service Europe. "It is unfathomable to think that anywhere in the EU children can be detained in such abhorrent conditions". 

A 2011 report by JRS Europe, From Deprivation to Liberty, reveals that there are more dignified alternatives for dealing with unaccompanied migrant. In Germany, a Protestant organisation provides individualised services to unaccompanied minors in a community-based environment. Their physical and mental health is better protected, and they can better follow the procedures surrounding their asylum applications. 

The EU institutions are currently negotiating new rules on the detention of asylum seekers. Decision makers in the European Parliament and the member states are debating whether unaccompanied asylum seeking children can be detained. 

"EU lawmaking should be about achieving good, protective, standards, rather than codifying already existing bad practices", argues Mr Amaral. 

"A detention centre is not a place for a child, let alone one without parents, relatives or a guardian. Experience shows that it's hardly ever in a child's best interests to be detained, and that there are other more dignified and humane ways to handle their cases". 

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