The UN Human Rights Office continues its engagement with Greece on several major human rights challenges. On 18 to 21 April, a joint mission of the Regional Office for Europe and the Migration Team visited so-called hotspots in Lesvos and Chios, the makeshift camp near the closed northern border in Idomeni and an official open accommodation center run by the Greek army at Nea Kavala. The team also met with Interior Minister Panagiotis Kouroublis and other Government officials as well as with representatives of Greek and international civil society. On 20 April, the Regional Representative also spoke at the launch of the Greek National Council against Racism and Intolerance.

Furthermore, on 18 May, the Government co-organized a round table on child and disability policies with the European Expert Group on the Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care in which the UN Human Rights Office is an active member. “The issue of unaccompanied migrant children was a common concern on both occasions,” explains the Regional Representative for Europe, Jan Jařab. „We witnessed the situation in the Moria center in Lesvos. We were very worried by the fact of their detention as well as by the conditions, which are not child-friendly at all, and by the lack of information.“ The same issue was also highlighted by the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants, François Crépeau. “Although the overall shift from open centers back to detention in Greek islands happened after the EU-Turkey agreement, unaccompanied children were being systematically detained even before,” points out the Regional Representative. “It is called ‘protective custody’, but in fact it fails to protect these children’s rights – it only restricts them.”

Reforms are in progress and a number of alternative shelters organized by local civil society organizations or foster care arrangements have been set up to provide temporary accommodation for a small number of migrant children. However, UN Human Rights Office Advisor on Migration and Human Rights Pia Oberoi, who visited Lesvos on 19 April, stresses that progress remains slow. “We must move faster,” says Oberoi. “Europe is failing these children.”

The round table of 18 May brought further discussions on the urgent need to find child-friendly alternatives for unaccompanied migrant children. It also dealt with rights of vulnerable groups of Greek citizens who are being placed in institutional care: children and persons with disabilities, including those with psychosocial disabilities (mental health problems). The UN Human Rights Office, together with its partners from the European Expert Group, has long been encouraging the Greek Government to move away from closed institutions and towards community-based or family-type services. Officials from the European Commission participated in the round table to show the potential of EU Structural and Investment Funds to be part of the solution.

“There is a need for a well-prepared de-institutionalization strategy,” says Jan Jařab. “Large institutions should not be replaced by small ones, but by genuine community support. But the State shouldn’t simply outsource its responsibilities: there also needs to be quality control of the newly created services, so as to ensure full enjoyment of all human rights by these rights-holders.” While systemic reforms require thorough preparation, some situations are so urgent that they need to be addressed without delay. This is clearly the case of unaccompanied migrant children languishing in detention centers and police cells. “Another case in the point is that of young people with disabilities in the infamous ‘care’ institution at Lechaina,” says Jan Jařab. „This is an institution with considerable running costs – but with extremely poor quality of care. Serious human rights abuses had repeatedly been documented there, both by the Greek Ombudsman and by civil society actors. People are being tied restrained physically – placed in wooden cages and tied to their beds – as well as pharmacologically. This facility must be urgently closed and replaced by a much more humane model of care.“

The Regional Representative stresses the can-do message: Similar institutions have been successfully closed and replaced by community-based alterantives in Bulgaria, Czechia and other EU Member States. Under the guidance of the European Expert Group, EU Structural Funds played a positive role in that regard. Greece itself has a success narrative to build on adds Jan Jařab. In the 1990s, it managed to close and replace the dreadful facilities on the island of Leros where persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities had been held until then.