NGO METAction to launch foster care programme for unaccompanied refugee children in Greece

Authorities call in METAction to care for children that arrive without any family - like the two-year-old from Syria found wandering alone in Orestiada or the eight-year-old boy that climbed into a trafficker's boat on the shores of Turkey, only to find himself separated from the rest of his family that remained on the shore after they were unable to get aboard the overcrowded dinghy.

While reunification with families was the best solution for children that became separated, Pappa pointed out, it often involved lengthy delays and this led METAction to consider a programme to place these children with families, especially those speaking the same language or sharing the same culture as the children.

Pappa said that METAction had helped 2,700 children that arrived alone in Greece since 2011, escorting them to child care structures mainly based in Athens. The numbers arriving were steadily increasing, however, due to the rising numbers of refugees generally, with 450 minors taken to hostels in the last two months, compared to an average rate of 40 to 50 per month in previous years.

Even these higher numbers did not fully reflect the extent of the problem, she added, which was notoriously underreported. She noted that it was difficult to determine whether an individual was underage without medical tests, with many adolescents claiming to be adults or "nephews" of adults that were actually strangers.

"We received a telephone call from the asylum service in Athens, which informed us that there was a child alone in Omonia Square. It was a child that told someone it was 19 years old, with an uncle. We found a frightened creature hidden inside an adult's jacket that reached right down to its knees. It was the first child that our commissioner in Athens took charge of," Pappa said.

"The youngest child we accompanied was 10 months old. Within the whole vulnerable group of minors there is an even more vulnerable group that is at risk of falling into the hands of traffickers, which is the under-12s," she added.

She noted that when METAction had started operating in Orestiada on a pilot basis in 2011, in an effort to keep children out of detention centres at a time when the migration flow was especially high in that area, the team had needed a security detail to guard against traffickers trying to snatch the children, which were easy targets for various forms of exploitation.

While state care facilities were a good and safe solution for refugee children, she added, placing them with families and especially reunification with their own families was the best solution.