Children in hiding have often experienced war, violent conflicts and acts of cruelty. As they flee and then seek asylum, they are subjected to additional psychosocial stress.
– “Refugee children forced to live in hiding are an even more vulnerable group and are in many respects invisible,” Henry Ascher (picture) said at the Solsticke seminar. Health and human rights aspects were highlighted.
Research-based knowledge about the situation of these children is limited. This was one reason that the subject was examined at a scientific seminar at the Nordic School of Public Health, NHV, on the 28/1/2009.
The seminar was arranged by the Solstickan Foundation and NHV. Participants included the UN’s first Special Rapporteur on the Right To Health 2002-2008, Professor Paul Hunt, and Charles Watters, Director of the European Centre for Migration and Social Care at the University of Kent.
The conference also looked at the issue of the tension between, on the one hand, all the conventions, rules and regulations in force to protect children and ensure their right to access the asylum process and, on the other hand, the State's control of migration and the realities that asylum seekers and children in hiding have to face.
More research is needed
The connection between health, children seeking asylum, and human rights was illuminated, and the question of how we can support children seeking asylum and in hiding was asked. Henry Ascher, paediatrician and Senior Lecturer at NHV, had planned the contents of the seminar as part of the Solsticke Prize 2008 of SEK 100,000 that he was awarded “for having acted to ensure that all children living permanently or temporarily in Sweden are taken care of in a manner which conforms to the provisions of the UN Convention on the Rights of Children”. By way of introduction, Henry Ascher summarized the limited research available relating to the situation of asylum-seeking children in hiding, with their families, during and after their time underground.
Sanna Vestin, Editor of utanpapper.nu was one of the speakers at the conference. Signe Smith Nielsen, Ph.D. Student at the University of Copenhagen, was severely critical of the fact that children were excluded from society and often denied normal school attendance. Living in hiding entails enormous risks and, when it comes to a debate about whether children in hiding should attend school, Signe Smith Nielsen pointed out
that the children of criminal parents are not excluded from society.
– “The most dangerous thing of all is to be excluded from society; all countries should allow these children to attend school, not least because they would be safer there than they would be in hiding.”
The same rights as other children
Nielsen contends that it is also counter-productive to prevent children from going to school, as both the country in which they are seeking asylum now and any country in which they happen to live in the future will benefit from the fact that they have attended school. She estimates the number of children in hiding in Norway, Sweden and Denmark to be around
10 000 in each country.
Professor Paul Hunt, who between 2002 and 2008 was the UN’s first Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, was able to relate that he is seeing a new interest in and a growing movement working with the right to health and issues relating to the importance of a functioning healthcare system all over the world. In order to make the right to health a reality, there must be a functioning healthcare system that is accessible to all without discrimination, including people without residence and work permits. He mentioned a wealth of publications on this subject.
He also maintained that children living in hiding obviously also have a right to health on the same terms as other children in that country, which includes the right to access health services and medical treatment.
– “We need well-informed public authorities and this will require cooperation between health experts and human rights workers,” Paul Hunt said. On a previous visit to Sweden, when he was UN rapporteur, he recommended that Sweden should establish a national institute for human rights.
In his talk, Charles Watters pointed out that there was any number of signed agreements. But they mean almost nothing to the practical living conditions of children seeking asylum and in hiding. He spoke about the new Europe’s walls, about refugees interned in border camps, about thousands of refugee children arriving on their own; human dramas unfolding on a daily basis.
The whole family is affected
– “We must see the children as competent main figures,” said Watters, who recommends a holistic approach. When it comes to the question of the right to healthcare, he was emphatic: people should have unrestricted access to healthcare services where they are living.
– “So what can we do for refugee children and everyone in hiding?” Professor emeritus and paediatrician Ingemar Kjellmer asked this question to kick-off the concluding panel discussion. Above all, the response was not to turn a blind eye to these people and to treat them humanely. Children and their parents often have the same symptoms of psychological stress, explained Gunlög Hedtjärn, a psychologist working in child and youth psychiatry in Gothenburg, with vast experience of children seeking asylum and in hiding. She tries to make the parents aware of these symptoms.
– “Children try to spare their parents and the parents can’t see the symptoms of mental ill-health because they are suffering from them too. We help family members to re-establish communication with each other,” Hedtjärn said.
Must to be allowed to talk about other things
Parents of families in hiding also need support to function as parents. Often a child in this situation is not keen to talk at length and in-depth about their problems, Ingemar Kjellmer explained.
– “They also want to talk about the film they saw yesterday, and something fun they’re looking forward to tomorrow.”
Boris Pendic, a 19-year-old pharmacology student who has previously lived in hiding himself, gave an account based on his own experiences. His talk about everyday life as a teenage in hiding was greatly appreciated.
– “All people need someone to talk to in order to develop,” Boris Pendic said, and added that the computer he was given thanks to Henry Ascher and the Rosengrenska Foundation was an enormous help in breaking his isolation in hiding and for keeping in touch with friends and relatives. But his most important contact was a social worker at BUP Hisingen with whom he had regular meetings.
– “We didn’t discuss my problems – we talked about other things, like our shared interest in cars,” Boris remembered.
When his contact noticed that Boris was feeling low, they found something fun to do together. Like going karting.
– “I remember one particular occasion when I didn’t want to go to school, so he took me to the karting track. He was a lap ahead, but I managed to beat him anyway!”
The seminar met with a great deal of interest with 110 participants from five countries and it received extensive media coverage.
Text: Monica Bengtson, Information Officer, NHV
Links
Link to Henry Ascher's presentation
Link to the report "I just want to land"
Link to Signe Smith Nielsen's presentation
Link to publications about health systems and accountability
Link to Gunilla Backman and Paul Hunt's report Health systems and the right to the highest attainable standard of health
Link to Paul Hunt's FN-rapport "Mission to Sweden"