ZAGREB, Jan 15, 2018- The civil society groups Welcome and Are You Syrious have called on the Croatian authorities to establish without delay political and institutional frameworks governed by the principle of responsibility and care for all children, including children of asylum-seekers.
The two civil society groups said in a statement on Monday that of the 28 migrant children who had started school in Zagreb a year ago, only ten still attended classes.
The other children have left the country because their requests for international protection were denied, and their families did not have reason to believe that they would be given protection and an opportunity for a better life in Croatia. A smaller number of those children have returned to their war-affected countries of origin or neighbouring countries, the two NGOs said.
At the current stage of the asylum process, migrant families can still use the few remaining legal mechanisms that maintain their hope that Croatian authorities will approve their stay. If they do not, and considering the fact that Croatia does not conduct deportation to migrants’ countries of origin, migrants face the danger of detention at the Jezevo centre for asylum seekers, or life outside the system in complete deprivation of any rights, the NGOs said.
“This once again reveals not only the dysfunctional state but also the poisonous destructiveness of the European migration control regime and the current asylum system. That system generates rightlessness and suffering, depriving entire generations not only of the possibility of education but also of other forms of institutional support that would make it possible for them to live their life in dignity,” the two NGOs said in the statement.
