The inadequacy of identification procedures followed by police combined with the lack of trained personnel and interpreters mean that there is a serious risk that trafficked children are not recognized as such. One official declared that his detention center did not have any trafficking victims within it—but there were no interpreters employed at the center and one of the detainees, an Afghan girl, told Human Rights Watch researchers that she had not been interviewed since her arrival. One boy described how he would be kept “like a prisoner” by the man who smuggled him if his uncle back home did not pay the agreed US$6000 smuggling fee. A 16-year-old girl from the Philippines told how she had come to Athens to join “her aunt,” taking up a job as a domestic worker. The guardianship system, the responsibility of juvenile and court prosecutors, is dysfunctional. There are no standard procedures explaining the mandate of guardians for foreign unaccompanied children, and as a result prosecutors have widely differing views of what their role entails. Some believe that they cannot act on behalf of detained children. Only a small minority of unaccompanied children ask for asylum no matter how solid their refugee claims. Many believe they have no chances of receiving refugee status. Indeed, Greece’s recognition rate of asylum-seekers after a first assessment stands at 0.03 percent. Unaccompanied children who want to apply for asylum in Greece face serious obstacles simply accessing asylum procedures. None of the children interviewed by Human Rights Watch, many of whom are illiterate, had been orally informed by police of their right to claim asylum. Although the authorities say that applications from children can be received any day of the week, in reality, unaccompanied children are lined up with hundreds of adults outside the Petrou Ralli police station in Athens each Sunday—the main facility for processing asylum claims. Children described waiting in line overnight and returning six or seven times before finally managing to enter the building. Some told us they gave up trying to file an asylum application. During the asylum interview, few are represented by a guardian or lawyer. Unaccompanied children told of interviews lasting only a few minutes in 3 Human Rights Watch December 2008