Methodology and Scope
This report addresses the treatment of unaccompanied children who seek asylum or
who migrate to Greece. With the exception of deportations, it does not address
unaccompanied children who enter Greece from Albania, as a series of reports by
other organizations has been published in the past eight years on their situation.1
Neither does this report document conditions in detention or in care centers, which
are discussed in a separate Human Rights Watch report entitled Greece—Stuck in a
Revolving Door: Iraqis and other Asylum seekers and Migrants at the Greece-Turkey
Entrance Gate to the European Union. This report does not repeat these findings and
instead only refers to conclusions documented in the second report.2
Research was carried out in Greece from April 14-16 and from May 21 to June 12.
Ninety-nine migrants and asylum seekers, among them 53 unaccompanied children,
were interviewed—three of them girls. Thirty-seven children were from Afghanistan,
10 were from Somalia, 2 were from Iraq, and the remaining 4 were from CongoBrazzaville, the Philippines, Nigeria, and Pakistan. Twenty-two children, including all
three girls, were below age 16, and the remaining were 16 or 17 years old.3
1
See for example, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)/Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
(ODIHR),“Trafficking in human beings in Southeastern Europe: 2004 - Focus on Prevention in: Albania, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and
the UN Administered Province of Kosovo,” March 2005, http://www.unicef.org/ceecis/Trafficking.Report.2005.pdf (accessed
September 3, 2008); UNICEF, OHCHR, OSCE/ODIHR, “Trafficking in human beings in Southeastern Europe: Current situation
and responses to trafficking in human beings in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova and Romania,” June 2002,
http://www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2002/06/1847_en.pdf (accessed September 3, 2008); Terre des hommes, “The
Trafficking of Albanian Children in Greece,” January 2003,
http://www.tdh.ch/website/doc_dnld.nsf/bf25ab0f47ba5dd785256499006b15a4/aa38138679a23d33c12571760041dd5d/$FI
LE/albania_childtrafficking_03_eng.pdf (accessed September 3, 2008); Terre des hommes, “Transnational Protection of
Children: the Case of Albania and Greece 2000-2006,” 2006,
http://www.tdh.ch/website/doc_dnld.nsf/bf25ab0f47ba5dd785256499006b15a4/aa38138679a23d33c12571760041dd5d/$FI
LE/transnational_protection_children_albania_greece_en_06.pdf (accessed September 3, 2008).
2
Human Rights Watch, Greece – Stuck in a Revolving Door: Iraqis and other Asylum seekers and Migrants at the GreeceTurkey Entrance Gate to the European Union, November 2008, http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2008/11/26/stuck-revolving-
door-0, pp. 68-85. For an assessment of services provided in state-funded care centers, see Ioannis Papageorgiu, Georgia
Dimitropoulou, “Unaccompanied Minors Asylum Seekers in Greece” (Unaccompanied Minors Study), April 2008,
http://hosting01.vivodinet.gr/unhcr/UAM_english.pdf (accessed August 18, 2008), pp. 58-70.
3
The youngest child, a girl, was 10 years old, two boys and one girl were 12, one boy was 13, six boys were 14, 11 boys were 15,
and the remaining children were 16 and 17 years old. We also conducted interviews with six adults who arrived to Greece at a
time they were unaccompanied and below age 18.
7
Human Rights Watch December 2008
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