Dubs scheme refugee children left on hold for a year in Greece

Dozens of unaccompanied children in Greece have been left in limbo for more than a year after they were expected to be admitted to the UK as part of the British government’s commitment to rescue Europe’s most vulnerable young refugees.

The group of up to 60 children were expected to come to the UK under a scheme, created by the Labour peer Alf Dubs, that was intended to bring around 3,000 child refugees into the country. But despite being put through a time-consuming screening process and being identified as provisionally eligible this time last year, they have heard nothing about their applications since.

With refugee charities voicing their concerns about the fate of the children, Lord Dubs will visit Athens on Thursday to investigate the fact that no children have been transferred to the UK this year.

Against the 3,000 figure initially set as the UK’s fair share of an estimated 90,000 child refugees travelling alone in Europe, just 200 came to the UK last year under the scheme, all of them from France. The government has made a firm commitment to house another 280, but charities express frustration that there has been no progress with applications submitted over a year ago.

“I think it is absolutely disgraceful nothing has happened,” Dubs said. He admitted that he was disappointed that his scheme had only led to the transfer of 200 children. “I’m both delighted for the sake of the small number of children that have come and who have found safety, but I’m bitterly disappointed that, given the political commitment to help, that the government is now seeking to back off.”

There was private concern from some charity workers that the possible involvement of teenage refugees in the Parsons Green bomb attack might further delay progress in clearing more refugee children to be resettled in the UK.

Dubs will meet some of the children in shelters in Athens this week, but many of them have subsequently gone missing, potentially exposing themselves to great personal risk by continuing to travel through Europe illegally.

Part of the delay in Greece may have been caused by the adherence to a requirement that child refugees must have arrived in Europe before March 2016 to be eligible under the scheme. As time passes, those young people who arrived before that date have begun to lose hope that there is any prospect of being helped under the scheme.

Elianna Konialis of the charity Safe Passage, which has been helping to identify eligible children in Greece, said that dashing the children’s hopes would have serious consequences. “What is problematic is that some of these children had their expectations raised last year. They were asked if they wanted to go to the UK, and then put on hold for more than a year. They have completely lost hope. It feels like a broken promise. Having children in limbo and waiting is so detrimental for their mental health.”

There are currently around 2,400 unaccompanied refugee children living in Greece, less than half of whom are in official shelters. The rest are either homeless, or living precariously in informal shelters. In an open letter to Dubs, the charity Praksis, which houses a number of the children who had expected to come to the UK, said there was disappointment that a scheme designed to give sanctuary to a large number of unaccompanied minors fleeing from war zones and violent regimes was being implemented without the spirit of generosity that characterised the original project.

“It’s 16 months since parliament passed the Dubs amendment and it’s time to get on with implementing it,” said Natasha Tsangarides, of Safe Passage in Greece. “Every day children are left waiting with uncertainty, they are unable to start the process of rebuilding their lives.”

Partly because there has been so little progress with the scheme, large numbers of unaccompanied minors have travelled to the UK illegally, risking their lives by smuggling themselves on boats and lorries, and those children who manage to get to the UK get some form of temporary leave to remain automatically. A Home Office spokesperson said: “In the past year, the UK has granted asylum or another form of leave to over 9,000 children and more than 42,000 children since 2010.”

UNHCR has called on the UK to increase the number of refugees it resettles to at least 10,000 a year.

Charities are also concerned about what will happen to the Europe-wide scheme for uniting refugee children with family members once Britain leaves the EU. Unicef has called on the government to “broaden its own rules and ensure the protection of unaccompanied refugee children”. Lily Caprani, the deputy executive director of Unicef UK, said: “It’s critical that Brexit doesn’t put at risk the ability of children fleeing war and persecution to reach the safety of their close family in the UK.”