Councillor Christiana Erotokritou, member of the Cypriot delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), participated today in a meeting of the Assembly's Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons in Paris.
In a discussion on the issue of finding alternative ways of providing care for unaccompanied minor refugees and migrants, Ms Erotokritou underlined that, since 2016, the Republic of Cyprus has received more than 1,500 unaccompanied minor refugees and migrants. Most of them, said Ms Erotokritou, are brought to Cyprus from Turkey, without the necessary legal documents, which complicates the process of examining asylum applications and puts these people in a particular state of vulnerability, as they are prone to all kinds of exploitation.
The Cypriot councillor pointed out that in many cases, traffickers force migrants to destroy their documents before entering the Republic in order to apply for asylum as minors. Such practices, she said, further burden the system due to additional time-consuming procedures to verify the age of applicants, resulting in a waste of public resources.
Ms Erotokritou stressed that traffickers, whether they are individuals, criminal organisations or countries, must be brought to justice and punished.The overburdened application processing system and the exhaustion of financial and human resources, the councillor noted, have a tragic impact on a small country like Cyprus. Under these circumstances, the capacity of the Republic of Cyprus to offer support and protection to people who really need it is even more limited.
For this reason, Ms Erotokritou stressed, there is an immediate need for financial and logistical support for the Republic of Cyprus, especially with regard to the optimization of the methods of age assessment of unaccompanied refugees and migrants, while at the same time, priority should be given to family reunification requests.
In conclusion, Ms Erotokritou pointed out that all Council of Europe member states should ensure the unhindered access of unaccompanied minors to care and protection structures, the provision of targeted social services and the establishment of a healthy environment that promotes, at all levels, the best interests of the child.
(Text as sent by the House of Representatives)
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