The Government warns the Public Prosecutor’s Office that the new plan for the reception of migrant minors from the Canary Islands "puts at risk" Children’s rights

The Ministry of Youth and Children has sent a report to the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office in which it warns about the possible impact of the protocol approved by the Canary Islands Government for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors. The Ministry points out that the measures imposed by the Canary Islands Executive could constitute a serious violation of the fundamental rights of children who arrive on the coasts of the autonomous community, and be contrary to both Spanish legislation and international agreements on child protection.

This Thursday, the Government of the Canary Islands, made up of the Canary Coalition and the Popular Party, announced the protocol, which introduces a series of prerequisites for the entry of migrant minors into the autonomous reception system. Among these requirements are, for example, the individual identification of the minors, their registration in the Registry of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors (RMENA) and the issuance of an administrative resolution by the State, all before the children can access the protection centres of the autonomous community.

According to the Canarian Government, the aim of the plan is to avoid the disorder that has dominated the process until now and to guarantee the “necessary order” of the children for their “immediate attention”. However, the Ministry of Youth and Childhood has expressed its concern about the possible consequences of this protocol and warns the Public Prosecutor that, “with this step, the Canary Islands puts at risk the rights of children and adolescents in a situation of helplessness”, according to sources from Sira Rego’s Ministry.

“[El protocolo] “It violates article 39.4 of the Spanish Constitution, which establishes that children shall enjoy the protection provided for in international agreements that safeguard their rights,” the organization recalls. “It constitutes a violation of the rights of minors by limiting their protection in the autonomous territory, contravening the rights recognized by the CDN and not taking proactive action to guarantee the well-being of the minor, since the act of the Autonomous Community clearly implies an action that reduces the effectiveness of the rights of minors.”

According to the report, the new measures slow down the protection of minors and, consequently, limit the effectiveness of their rights at a particularly vulnerable time for them. This situation, say sources from the Ministry, is contrary to the obligation of public authorities to act proactively to guarantee the well-being of minors in all circumstances, and they criticise that the Canary Islands protocol could be contravening the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands itself, which grants the Autonomous Community exclusive competence in matters of protection of minors.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office itself had already warned the Canary Islands Government that it will report a crime of abandonment if it does not take in migrant minors. In a decree released this Friday, the Canary Islands’ chief prosecutor, María Farnés Martínez, gave instructions to the Archipelago’s prosecutors on how to act in the event that the State’s security forces and bodies were to inform them of “the refusal of the General Directorate for the Protection of Children” to take in a migrant child in a centre in the Autonomous Community, once the minor was “duly identified” in accordance with the national protocol of 2014.

“The Prosecutor’s Office will be able to tell us where we have to take these unaccompanied minors”

Meanwhile, the Vice President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez (PP), denied this Saturday that unaccompanied migrant minors are or will be abandoned, and guaranteed that the regional Executive will comply with the instructions of the Prosecutor’s Office. “The Prosecutor’s Office can tell us where we have to take these unaccompanied minors and we are at the complete disposal to continue caring for these children, I don’t know if as they deserve, but what we will never do is abandon them,” he assured before presiding over a meeting of the PP’s regional board of directors, according to EFE.

The Vice President of the Canary Islands has emphasised that what his Government wants is simply “for the law to be complied with”. Until now, they say, the minors were simply handed over by the National Police to the NGOs in charge of their reception using a list, a kind of “group handover” without identification that has caused some “identity confusion” among them. Domínguez has stated that the plan aims “to stop doing things the way they have been done until now” and that the migrant minors are handed over by the Police, not to the NGOs, but to an official of the autonomous community and “in an individualised manner, with a photograph, fingerprint, name, identification, and so that we know exactly where that minor is going to go”.

The new protocol is published amid growing tension between the Canary Islands Government and the central Government over the responsibility for the management of unaccompanied migrant minors. The Canary Islands Executive defends the need to establish this type of control to avoid further saturation of its reception centres, which currently house more than 5,300 minors. The Spanish Government, on the other hand, is reviewing the protocol with its legal services to verify whether it invades exclusive competences of the State, such as the guardianship of migrant minors, as announced on Thursday by the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres. Torres insisted on the importance of coordinating responsibilities.

The Canary Islands plan has also sparked opposition from Podemos, which believes that it is “out of place” and will create “situations of helplessness” for children, by putting “bureaucracy before their protection.” “Podemos Canarias defends comprehensive protection from the outset without bureaucratic issues implying a reduction or violation of the rights of migrant children,” the organization said in a statement on Friday.