VI. The Duty of Care Care Arrangements Safe accommodation is a fundamental measure for the protection of children from exploitation and abuse. According to international standards, a child deprived of his or her family environment is entitled to special protection and assistance from the state, and states parties are to ensure the provision of alternative care for such a child. Such care includes foster placement, adoption or, if necessary, placement in a suitable institution for children. 201 The Convention on the Rights of the Child requires that states parties “render appropriate assistance to parents and legal guardians in the performance of their child-rearing responsibilities” and “ensure the development of institutions, facilities and services for the care of the children.”202 In Greece there is an acute shortage of sufficient and adequate accommodation for unaccompanied migrant children, and no foster care system exists for them.203 As of November 2008, the Ministry of Health funded or co-funded approximately 200 places for unaccompanied children in care institutions only. Many centers are managed by NGOs and funded partly or fully by the government.204 Furthermore, it does not have short- or medium-term plans to make sufficient care places available. There is no center specifically for unaccompanied girls and the ministry does not plan to open a special center for them. Although Human Rights Watch noted that more than one dozen unaccompanied girls entered Greece within the course of a few weeks,205 when we asked the Ministry about its plans to meet these girls’ protection needs we were informed that a center would only be opened if the number of girls increased “dramatically.”206 Furthermore, no minimum standards exist for the 201 CRC, art. 18(2), 20.(1-3) 202 CRC, art. 18(2) 203 This was already the case in 2005. See UN Commission on Human Rights, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Juan Miguel Petit, Mission to Greece, E/CN.4/2006/67/Add.3, March 27, 2006, para. 48. 204 For a full assessment of care centers for unaccompanied children see Papageorgiu and Dimitropoulou, Unaccompanied Minors Study, pp. 58-70. 205 See footnote 7. 206 Letter from Maria Trochani, secretary general, Ministry of Health, to Human Rights Watch, October 3, 2008. 65 Human Rights Watch December 2008