Child Commissioner addresses teachers on the legal status of migrant children
The Child Commissioner addressed the seminar of the Pedagogical Institute on integration of non-Greek speaking students with a legal paper on the immigration status of children. The Commissioner referred to the problems generated by the absence of a child-centred approach from international texts and from the administrative checks which lead to a situation where the vulnerable position of children, whether they are unaccompanied or not, refugees, asylum seekers or victims of trafficking, is completely ignored, e.g. references to family reunification do not include the right of a child to live with its parents. She referred to the Convention for the Rights of the Child as a milestone in child protection adding that the widely held view that undocumented migrants are not entitled to human rights is incorrect and in breach of the legal obligations deriving from international law. She expressed the hope that the educational reform currently under way will lead to a change of focus towards migrants not merely in order to integrate them into our own reality but to converse with them, understand them and benefit from the cultural enrichment they carry; and to a school that courageously condemns racism without hiding behind prejudice or delinquent behaviour.
Source:
Commisioner for Children's Rights, http://www.childcom.org.cy/ccr/ccr.nsf/All/CB49D07600359754C225773F001E9B25?Opendocument, Date of Access 15.11.2011
