The Ministry of Health and the autonomous communities are nalizing a significant change of model in the care of unaccompanied foreign minors, which would involve the modification of various laws. In the new protocol, the central Government would assume the first host of newcomers, which is now in the hands of the autonomous communities for two or three weeks after, to be redirected by Spain of a more proportional way to the current. This formula, of function, it would prevent foreign minors should be concentrated in Andalucía, Melilla and Ceuta, main entrance doors, and Catalonia and the Basque Country, in communities of destination and transit towards Europe.
The plan, advanced by the chain to Be, it is still a draft in the working of the Observatory of Childhood, a working group of the Ministry of Health, with the autonomous communities and NGOS, and that has to be passed in Full prior to submitting to the next Government.
The first steps of this initiative set began to occur in September of last year, when there was a clear disproportion in the distribution of foreign minors and the difficulties of some communities to assume their responsibilities in this collective, formed, according to the latest official figures, by 12.786 children and adolescents.
The document, which has had access to THE COUNTRY, it reverts to the solidarity of the autonomous communities. In 2018, a record-breaking year of entry of unaccompanied foreign minors, some regions were overwhelmed. The central Government appealed to the solidarity between territories and asked that other communities with much less migration pressure to take over part of the host, but the response was negligible and offered less than 2,000 spaces. Health ended up enabling a credit extraordinary of 40 million to compensate communities that had experienced the largest increase in arrivals, but he made it clear that money does not solve the issue.
it Is for this reason that the working group proposes that the central Government assume the first host, and to this end contemplates the establishment of a network of new centers in the major territories of arrival. During their stay they will study the profile and the needs of the children and were submitted to the tests of determination of age then you will be redirected to other communities. This new “system of territorial distribution of efforts” would be taken into account, as a starting point, three parameters: the tax revenue of the community, the population, and the unemployment rate, since the integration of the children “is linked to the labour market upon reaching the age of majority.”
The draft, dated 31 October, also includes the need to promote family foster care, changes in the procedure of the determination of the age of the children and the creation of a mechanism of referral of children by communities based on criteria such as the population or the unemployment rate. Among the objectives is also to the requirement of minimum levels of quality in the reception centres, the improvement of the current record that accounted for the children and a special attention to the employment needs of the teenage once you have verified that the first cause to start your journey is to work to alleviate the poverty of their families.
Many of the new proposals involve the creation of a new legal basis,” with changes in the aliens act, the asylum act and the law on the Legal Protection of minors which, predictably, is going to complicate your implementation.
The plan is an approximation to a model of care more consistent and which takes into account the interests of the child. At present, each autonomous community is working with different models of inclusion and various deadlines to ensure the documentation to which they have a right, an obligation which is violated systematically. According to the province, the children live in crowded and sleeping on mattresses or in a facility that guarantees them the learning of the language and their employment. Also depending on the community in which they are to be subjected to a different protocol, more or less justice, for the determination of the age.
