In French refugee camps, single migrant children and adolescents are victims of violence and sexual abuse, according to a survey led by Unicef.
Children and adolescents abused, prostituted, raped and assaulted… These are the conclusions of an investigation unveiled by Unicef. the report, published on June 16, paints a worrying portrait of what the daily life of single migrant adolescents and children looks like in refugee camps in northern France.
“Migrant and refugee children suffer daily sexual exploitation, violence and forced labor, ”the report concludes. But although an omerta dominates, some children have broken the silence, detailing living conditions punctuated by violence and precariousness. According to the report, cSome of them have even expressed their desire to be hospitalized in a psychiatric ward, experienced by recurrent abuse. DIn the camps where they fight tirelessly for a living, children “find themselves forced to come to an agreement with the traffickers”, thus exposing them to increased risks of violence and exploitation.
Between January and April 2016, the UNICEF investigation looked into the case of 61 unaccompanied migrant children – aged between 11 and 17 years old – who lived in camps in northern France (in Calais, Dunkirk or still in Cherbourg).
“Children get beaten up”
“The bond was not easy to create with the children,” says Why actor Olivier Peyroux, sociologist and author of the report. We did not have a confidential place, adolescents and children feared that their smugglers, on whom they depend, would hear them. This complicated things, ”explains the sociologist.
Minors are never out of sight of adults. “They have no protection and have no place to confide. They always feel controlled, they are not offered the possibility of being in a structure reserved for children ”.
And the violence of which they are victims is manifold. “Among them, police and intercommunity violence”, details the sociologist. Some smugglers “prevent minors from getting on trucks to reach the United Kingdom, children are beaten up”, he denounces. Other acts of violence are linked to far-right militias, and identifying the perpetrators remains particularly difficult.
And when this violence occurs, young migrants can benefit from medical care – through the presence of humanitarian associations – but it remains “insufficient”. In addition, “these children do not go to school, while on average they stay for more than 5 months”, concludes Olivier Peyroux.
“A number of interviews with young girls have identified practices of exchange and sexual services for the promise of passage to the United Kingdom”, details the report in turn. “The more these children are forced to wait, desperate, the more they are likely to risk their lives to join their families,” confirms the deputy director of Unicef in Great Britain, Lily Caprani.
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