’Why can’t I be legal anywhere?’: exploited and left stateless by Sweden

Rahman* arrived as an unaccompanied minor. Abused and deported, his future is uncertain but his European dream intact.

Rahman was out buying food when Spanish police handed him a €500 fine for breaking coronavirus restrictions. “I’ll pay this as soon as I get a residence permit,” he told them. He laughs as he recalls the incident. “Look how thin I’ve become, I weigh only 57 kilos,” he says. The 21-year-old Palestinian shows his skinny 5ft 7in frame over the webcam.

He speaks in Swedish mixed with Norwegian expressions – his capacity in both languages is testament to the nearly five years spent between the countries as an adolescent. They were formative years, where he learned that even apparently kind gestures such as the offer of a place to stay could open the door to unfathomable cruelty.

It was a time when no matter what Rahman suffered, the legal right to remain in Europe eluded him. His lack of status enabled appalling crimes to be committed against him, and it left the criminals unpunished. He has been exploited and deported but his dream of Europe endures. He has found his way back to the continent but the future is uncertain.

In October 2013, 15-year-old Rahman arrived in Sweden alone. Like so many other young refugees, he had heard good things about Sweden: children are protected, they get to attend school and feel safe, their rights are respected and almost all get to stay.

He grew up in Jordan, his Palestinian parents refugees from Gaza. Jordan’s citizenship laws had no place for Rahman, leaving him stateless. When the war in Syria was in its third year, his father wanted to send him across the border to fight the Syrian regime. His mother disagreed and the teenager fled to what she hoped would be a place of safety.

In Sweden, Rahman lived in a refugee shelter, started school and quickly learned the language. He played football in his spare time. But despite his young age and troubles in Jordan, the court of migration in Stockholm rejected his asylum application in the summer of 2014.

With no idea of what to do, Rahman left the youth hostel in Stockholm to avoid being deported, and cut off contact with his state-appointed guardian.

That is when he met Martin: a man in his 30s, with a shaved head and heavy gold chains around his neck. Once Martin understood Rahman’s situation, he invited him to a flat in central Stockholm.

When he got there Rahman was shocked. Some people were sniffing glue, others were using cocaine. He was given a drink – his first taste of alcohol. The night became a haze. Martin took him into a room. Rahman was struck to the ground and felt hands on his body.

The rapes and beatings continued for months. Martin threatened to kill him if he tried to run away. Rahman had seen guns and knives around the flat and did not dare argue or ask questions. “I had nowhere to go. No money. And there was no one to help me,” he says.

A lot of people came to the flat, and it was Rahman’s job to keep it clean. He was given takeaway food and drugs. Martin would call at any hour and send him off with a bag and address to deliver it to. He was sent on drug trips across Europe, for which he was given new clothes, a fake passport and a bag to carry. Rahman, usually on drugs, slept through the flights.

He is among thousands of children who have come to Sweden in recent years only to go missing when their European dreams are shattered. According to the Swedish migration agency, 2,014 unaccompanied minors are missing without trace since 2013 – equivalent to almost 70 school classes. The threat of deportation is often mentioned as a reason for these disappearances, as is human trafficking.

But no one really knows, because no one is searching for them. The police keep records but often do not actively search for the children. Municipalities say children no longer resident in their area are not their responsibility. The migration agency says it cannot examine the cases of missing children. In 2016, the UN human rights committee criticised Sweden for failing to prevent these disappearances.

Many, like Rahman, are vulnerable to abuse and traffickers. According to a 2015 survey by a Swedish government agency, most suspected child trafficking cases involved unaccompanied minors. At that time, no trafficking investigations involving unaccompanied minors had resulted in a prosecution.

To understand where the system was failing, I researched every suspected case of trafficking of minors in Sweden during a four-year period up to 2015. According to police reports and preliminary investigations, more than half of the cases involved sexual slavery, in which nearly half of the victims were boys. The police’s failed response to trafficking was systemic.

Rahman was one of those cases. I tracked him down in Norway. After several months, he had managed to escape Martin. On reaching Norway, he again applied for asylum and reported his experience of trafficking to authorities. Rahman and his lawyer felt the authorities did not take his case seriously. Because the alleged trafficking took place in Sweden, Norwegian police passed the investigation to their Swedish colleagues. Rahman did not trust the investigators in either country. They did not seem to realise how dangerous it would be for him to single out Martin with no witness protection.

Shortly after Rahman turned 18, we spent a few days at a seaside resort. Surrounded by glittering Norwegian fjords, he and his court-appointed guardian sat outside on a mild summer evening. He leaned against her with his big ragged hair and gentle smile. “She’s like a mother to me,” he said.

The Swedish trafficking investigation was eventually dropped. His asylum application in Norway was also rejected. Now 18, he was no longer technically a child. In the summer of 2018, he was deported to Jordan.

After nearly five years in Europe, Rahman struggled with the more socially controlled society in Jordan. He could not return to his strictly religious family: he now smoked, drank alcohol and wore an earring. Without a Jordanian ID, he had no access to medical care or hope of returning to education.

The police seemed to relish harassing him. They would ask: why were you in Europe? Why have you come back? He was even mocked by friends and relatives: where’s the money, the success, the expensive things? For a while he worked 12-hour days at a tourist bazaar for wages that did not cover his rent. After a few weeks he decided to leave again.

First he attempted to sail to Greece via Turkey but the yellow dinghy was stopped by Turkish coastguards. After a month and a half in a Turkish prison, he returned to Jordan. He had a Norwegian girlfriend at the time. As a European, she could come to visit for a few weeks. Rahman has none of these options.

His friends in Norway arranged for him to stay with people they knew in Kosovo and he planned to continue overland further into Europe. But he was arrested in Montenegro and sent back to Kosovo. He became severely ill and returned to Jordan. But he was already making new plans to reach Europe.

“I can’t build a life here,” he said in the summer of 2019. “I want to go to Europe again. I am never giving up.”

This time he went to Morocco. Rahman knew this was his most dangerous journey so far. “But I am going to make it, I am sure of it,” he insisted. Later that summer, he reached the Moroccan border with the Spanish enclave of Melilla.

This gateway to Europe is marked with high razor wire fences and monitored by drones. Migrants and Moroccan boys his age were everywhere, hoping to get through the border at night. Some had been trying for months, even years. Rahman’s plan was to swim around the sea fences, a treacherous feat as border guards sometimes fire plastic bullets at swimmers. His first four attempts failed and he was hurt in a fall before he finally managed to swim into the port of Melilla.

“I am so happy – I am in Europe again!” he said in a message.

Afraid of being forced back to Morocco, he stowed away onboard a cargo ship to mainland Spain. He was given a place in a refugee shelter and €50 a month to live on. But this assistance was cut after six months, just as the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe.

As we kept in touch over the years, I would always ask how he was and he always replied: “Good,” no matter the circumstances. He has to stay positive, he says, to keep going towards what he longs for: an ordinary life, with a home. He would like to study languages and maybe work with tourists as he is so used to meeting new people.

But there is little space to talk about the future right now. Rahman does not even know what tomorrow will bring, where he will sleep or how he will eat. He is considering two unwanted options: start selling drugs again or commit a crime deliberately to get caught. “If I get arrested, I have somewhere to live until corona is over,” he said.

Rahman’s European dream has brought him back. Despite the trials he has gone through, the stateless boy is now a young man but no closer to having papers. The asylum process in Spain is long, up to 18 months, and uncertain – and that was before the pandemic. He thinks of Sweden or Norway but doubts his chances. From Scandinavia to Jordan, he has never been granted the right to belong. “Why is that?” he asks. “Why can’t I be legal anywhere?”

*Rahman’s name has been changed and his photograph in the main image obscured to protect his identity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/06/why-cant-i-be-legal-anywhere-exploited-and-left-stateless-by-sweden?CMP

#illégalisation #exploitation #sans-papiers #apatridie #asile #migrations #réfugiés #migrerrance #Europe #Norvège #réfugiés_palestiniens #MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés

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Ethiopia : Unaccompanied Eritrean Children at Risk. Asylum Policy Changes Threaten Eritreans’ Rights

https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/946w/public/multimedia_images_2020/202004africa_ethiopia_hitsats.jpg?itok=ocaJquAQ#.jpg

The Ethiopian government’s changes to asylum procedures for Eritreans undermines their access to asylum and denies unaccompanied children necessary protection. The Ethiopian authorities should ensure that all Eritreans have the right to apply for asylum and publicly announce changes to its asylum and camp management policies.

In late January 2020, the Ethiopian government unofficially changed its asylum policy, which for years granted all Eritrean asylum seekers refugee status as a group. Staff from Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA) have only registered some categories of new arrivals at the Eritrea border, excluding others, notably unaccompanied children, the United Nations and aid groups say. Ethiopia’s refusal to register these asylum seekers could force them to return to abusive situations in violation of international refugee law.

“Ethiopia has long welcomed tens of thousands of Eritreans fleeing persecution each year,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “With no letup in repression in Eritrea, the Ethiopian government shouldn’t be denying protection to Eritrean nationals, particularly unaccompanied children.”

Each year, thousands of Eritrean secondary school students, some still under 18, are conscripted into the country’s abusive indefinite national service program. National service is supposed to last 18 months, but the government often extends it to well over a decade. National service hampers children’s access to education and family life.

To apply for asylum and gain official refugee status, Eritreans need to register with Ethiopia’s refugee agency at “collection centers” when they cross the border. After registration, many then move into 1 of 6 refugee camps, 4 in the Tigray region. A smaller number live as urban refugees. With official refugee status, Eritreans are eligible for services and protection.

In July 2018, Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace agreement, ending two decades of armed conflict and hostility, but it has not led to improvements in the human rights situation in Eritrea. In 2019, about 6,000 Eritreans arrived in Ethiopia every month. Ethiopia currently hosts 171,876 Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers, over a third of Eritrea’s global refugee population. According to the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, as of December, 44 percent of Eritrean refugees in the Tigray refugee camps were children.

In January 2019, Ethiopia’s parliament adopted progressive revisions to its refugee law that allow refugees and asylum seekers to obtain work permits and access primary education, receiving significant international acclaim. However, in January 2020, for reasons not made public, the government began to exclude certain categories of new arrivals from Eritrea from registering, including unaccompanied children.

Denying people access to asylum is inhumane and unlawful, Human Rights Watch said. It may violate the fundamental principle of non-refoulement, which bars returning refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they face threats to their lives or freedom or the risk of torture. This principle also applies to indirect acts that have the effect of returning people to harm – for example, when uncertainty leads people to believe that they cannot apply for asylum and have no practical option but to return.

The refusal to register unaccompanied children may compel them to return to abusive situations, Human Rights Watch said. Under international standards, governments should prioritize children’s access to asylum and offer children, particularly those who are unaccompanied, special care and protection.

As of December, UNHCR said 27 percent of the Eritrean children arriving in the Tigray refugee camps were unaccompanied. About 30 unaccompanied or separated children arrived every day. Previously, Ethiopia had granted unaccompanied Eritrean children immediate care arrangements, access to emergency education, and individual counseling, although those services were reportedly under significant strain.

However, the authorities have not been registering unaccompanied children since late January, and these children are not entitled to protection services or refugee camp accommodations, leaving them to fend for themselves. An aid worker in the Tigray region said “If children are undocumented [i.e. unregistered], they don’t have access to food, shelter, protection, or any psychosocial support. That exposes them to many external risks, including exploitation.”

Under Ethiopia’s 2019 Refugees Proclamation, the government recognizes refugees as people who meet both the 1951 Refugee Convention definition and the definition of the 1969 African Union Refugee Convention, which includes people fleeing “events seriously disturbing public order.” The proclamation states that the government can revoke group refugee determination, in consultation with UNHCR, by giving due consideration to the country of origin situation and publishing a directive.

The Ethiopian government does not appear to have followed these guidelines. It has not published a directive to inform new arrivals, refugees, and humanitarian partners, including the UNHCR, of the new criteria for registration, appeal procedures if their claims are denied, alternative legal routes for new arrivals, and reasons for the changes. This uncertainty risks creating significant confusion and fear for Eritrean asylum seekers, Human Rights Watch said.

On March 27, Human Rights Watch sent a letter with questions to Ethiopia’s refugee agency requesting a response on any changes to its policies or practice towards Eritrean refugees. No response has been received.

UNHCR maintains its 2011 eligibility guidelines on Eritrea. The guidelines offer countries advice on how to assess protection needs of Eritrean asylum seekers, and the agency recently said at an immigration hearing in the United Kingdom that “until there is concrete evidence that fundamental, durable, and sustainable changes have occurred, these guidelines should be maintained.”

The human rights situation in Eritrea remains dire and has not fundamentally changed since the 2018 peace agreement, making any shift in policy premature, Human Rights Watch said.

The Ethiopian authorities announced in early March that it would close the Hitsats refugee camp in the Tigray region, where 26,652 Eritreans live, as of mid-April, according to UNHCR. That includes about 1,600 unaccompanied children who are receiving care, UNHCR said.

Refugees and aid workers told Human Rights Watch that the timeline and procedures for the camp to close remain unclear. The deputy director general of Ethiopia’s refugee agency recently told the media that the relocations, reportedly on hold because of Covid-19, could begin by late April. The lack of clarity and the asylum policy change make it difficult to assess the impact of the camp’s closure and plan for viable, safe alternatives, including for unaccompanied children, Human Rights Watch said.

An Eritrean man who was unlawfully imprisoned for seven years in Eritrea and now is in Hitsats camp said, “No one explains clearly our rights, where we go, what is the time frame, all these details. We are very worried – we already have our own problems. In addition to our everyday stresses and difficulties, this is adding more.”

“Unaccompanied Eritrean children who seek asylum in Ethiopia face an impossible choice between lack of legal protection and services and uncertainty inside Ethiopia, or the risk of serious abuse if they return home,” Bader said. “Ethiopia should continue to show leadership in its treatment of Eritreans, with international support, and ensure that even during the Covid-19 crisis, it continues to protect asylum seekers from needless harm.”

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/21/ethiopia-unaccompanied-eritrean-children-risk

#Ethiopie #réfugiés #réfugiés_érythréens #Erythrée #asile #migrations #réfugiés #enfants #enfance #MNA #mineurs_non_accompagnés #Hitsats

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