[Action2-l] Children in UK‏

UK Asylum Process For Children Labelled 'Traumatic'

Children who come to the UK alone to seek asylum find the experience confusing, stressful and traumatic, a report suggests. The study by the Children's Society found there was a "culture of disbelief" among immigration staff dealing with children's asylum claims. It calls for a series of improvements to give young applicants more support. The UK Border Agency said it was already addressing many of the issues raised in the report.

Danny Shaw, BBC News, 21/09/12



Government Immigration Watchdog Wants More Children Detained
More routine use should be made of a controversial "child-friendly" detention centre for families facing removal from Britain, according to a new Home Office watchdog.

The independent family returns panel says that the child welfare charity Barnardo's, which provides welfare services at the G4S-run Cedars "pre-departure centre", should drop its "red line" that it should only be used as a last resort and that no more than 10% of the families facing removal should be held there.

The first annual report from the panel, which is chaired by a former social services director, says that immigration and private security staff should be given the right to use force to restrain teenage children who aggressively try to resist the removal of themselves and their families.

Alan Travis,  guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 19 September 2012

Bron : chiara lauvergnac

31 Children Dead In Migrant Boat Disaster in the Aegean‏

More than half of the 60 migrants who died after their boat sank in the Aegean sea on Thursday were children, according to Tahsin Kurtbeyoglu, governor of the coastal district of Menderes in Turkey’s western Izmir province. Kurtbeyoglu, said 31 of the dead were children, including three babies.

The shipwreck happened as the migrant routes through the Greek-Turkish borders shift from Evros to the Aegean, as a result of the “Xenios Zeus” police campaign, aimed mainly to a distraction from the recent IMF/Troika imposed austerity cuts…

Meanwhile, the nazi party gets 10% in the polls…

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Immigration waivers leave migrant children behind

Any American who has turned on the news lately could watch many young immigrants taking a first step toward the American dream. The Department of Homeland Security began taking applications on Aug. 15 for "deferred action for childhood arrivals," temporary relief from deportation for unauthorized immigrants who were brought to the USA as children.

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But what you did not see in the stories of thousands lining up in Chicago or packing churches in New York were the many children who should benefit but won't. Deferred action is intended for children who are "American" in everything but legal status, but the program's idea of "American" is unlikely to include the children who picked the oranges for your juice or the tomatoes on your hamburgers.

It is common knowledge that the U.S. agricultural industry depends on immigrant labor. What is less well-known is that hundreds of thousands of children, often starting full-time at age 11 or 12, are working in the fields. Under federal law, children can legally work in agriculture at younger ages, for longer hours and under more hazardous conditions than other working children. Many of them are U.S. citizens, but there are also plenty of unauthorized migrant children.

We learned, for example, of Ingrid Perez, a 17-year-old migrant farmworker who is unlikely to benefit from deferred action. To be eligible, applicants must be in school, have graduated from high school or have a GED, or be an honorably discharged veteran. But Ingrid, an honor roll student, dropped out of school to work. Children who move with their parents from state to state with planting and harvest change schools, on average, three times a year. They are also often under financial pressure to help support their families. As a result, child farmworkers drop out at four times the national average.

Applicants must also prove they have been in the country since June 15, 2007, but the usual ways of proving "continuous presence" through utility bills and leases will be difficult for children who live in migrant housing. Child farmworkers in rural areas are less likely to find lawyers who can help them with the application, especially because federally funded legal services organizations are barred from serving unauthorized immigrants.

Even getting identification, proof of who they are, can be challenging in rural communities. Ingrid has been trying to enroll in a GED course but can't without identification, which she does not have as an unauthorized migrant. She could apply for a passport at the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington, D.C., but that would mean a trip she cannot afford.

Some of these barriers might be addressed through administrative decisions on evidentiary requirements for deferred action. But what is clear is the program of deferred action was not designed for child farmworkers who, like many immigrants throughout U.S. history, live very different lives than middle-class, suburban kids.

Given the tenor of debate over illegal immigration, it's not surprising that the Obama administration designed a program for the best and the brightest immigrant children. But the fact that deferred action will probably exclude many farmworker children underscores how much immigration law is out of sync with the reality of an economy that depends on unauthorized immigrants and American families whose loved ones are unauthorized.

The children who help feed this country have American dreams, too. Congress should create the immigration system these children deserve.

 Bron :

Grace Meng is a U.S. researcher at Human Rights Watch and author of the report "Cultivating Fear: The Vulnerability of Immigrant Farmworkers in the U.S. to Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment."


by Grace Meng
Published in:  USA Today
AUGUST 29, 2012

U.N. condemns Syrian killings; toll rises to 108

Syrians protest massacre

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Security Council singles out "government artillery and tank shelling" in massacre
• "Severe physical abuse," gunfire also blamed
• Syria says the statement leaves blame ambiguous, promises to investigate
• But Germany says the deaths bear "a clear footprint of the government"

(CNN) -- The U.N. Security Council on Sunday condemned the weekend massacre of more than 100 civilians in Syria, with members casting blame on government forces for the deaths.

U.N. military observers said the toll from the Friday assault on the village of Houla included dozens of women and children. After consultations Sunday afternoon, Security Council members condemned "attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood," as well as the killings of civilians by close-range gunshots and "severe physical abuse."

"Such outrageous use of force against the civilian population constitutes a violation of applicable international law and of the commitments of the Syrian government under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2042 and 2043 to cease violence in all its forms, including the cessation of use of heavy weapons in population centers," said Azerbaijan's Deputy Ambassador Tofig Musayev, who presided over the meeting. The members demanded that Syrian troops immediately pull its troops and heavy weapons back from cities in accordance with an April cease-fire.

Read Ban Ki-moon's letter to the Security Council

Bashar Jaafari, Syria's U.N. ambassador, told reporters the statement wasn't blaming his government for all the killings, since the statement left the cause of most deaths ambiguous. He said most of the deaths were caused by gunfire, and the council statement did not specifically assign blame for those fatalities.

And Russia, a longtime ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, believes "it still remains unclear what happened and what triggered what," as Russian charge d'affaires Alexander Pankin put it.

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But German Ambassador Peter Wettig said there was "clear evidence" connecting the government to the deaths. "The evidence is not murky, and there is a clear footprint of the government in this massacre," Wettig said. And Martin Brines, the French deputy ambassador, said a briefing by the head of the U.N. observer mission in Syria "clearly shows the responsibility of the Syrian government in failing to protect its civilians as well, as attacking them directly."

U.N. observers in Syria said the toll from the Houla massacre had risen to 108 on Sunday, including 34 women and 49 children under the age of 10, said Sausan Ghosheh, the observer mission's spokeswoman. Horrific images of the bodies in Houla spread across the internet, fueling fresh protests by Syrian opposition groups in several cities.

Videos posted Sunday on YouTube show demonstrations in cities around the country, including Damascus, Daraa, Idlib, and the suburbs of Hama.

"Oh Houla, we are with you until death," protesters chanted in Daraa. And a demonstration in Idlib showed a U.N. vehicle among protesters. In the Hama suburbs, demonstrators called for President Bashar al-Assad to step down.

But the 14-month-old clampdown continued, with opposition activists reporting another 26 people -- including five children and three women -- killed across the country on Sunday.

Opposition activists said killings began with a mortar bombardment following Friday prayers, followed by a rampage by government-allied militias. Video posted over the weekend showed opposition activists displaying the bloodied remains of more than 10 children, including some with limbs blown off or skulls torn open. In another, medics treated a crying infant whose chest was covered in bandages.

Syria has denied its troops were behind the bloodbath in Houla, and Jafaari denounced what he called a "tsunami of lies" against his government. He called the deaths "an appalling, horrific unjustified and unjustifiable crime" and vowed Syria's government had launched a national commission to investigate them.

"Whoever committed these crimes will be held accountable by the Syrian authorities, by the Syrian government's law," he said.

In state-run media, the Syrian regime said "al Qaeda-linked terrorist groups committed two horrible massacres against a number of families in the towns of al-Shumariyeh and Taldo in the countryside of Homs province."

The state report also showed gruesome images of children spattered with blood. But CNN can not independently confirm details from Syria nor the authenticity of videos, however, as the Syrian government strictly limits access by foreign journalists.

But Alex Thompson, a reporter for Britain's ITV television network who was in Houla, said its residents appeared to be voting with their feet.

"There are lots of civilians in the rebel-held areas. They are not apparently frightened of the fighters. They are speaking openly to the United Nations," Thomson told CNN. "In the areas of the town held by the army, there is nobody -- it's a ghost town."

The Syrian crisis began in March 2011, when peaceful demonstrations modeled on the "Arab Spring" uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt sprang up across Syria. Al-Assad's government responded by turning police and troops on demonstrators -- but the protests spread across the country, with defecting soldiers taking up up arms on behalf of the opposition.

A cease-fire agreement, brokered by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, has been in place since April 12 as part of a six-point peace plan. But Col. Qasim Saad Eddine, a spokesman for the rebel Free Syrian Army, said Saturday that it was "no longer possible to abide by the peace plan" after the Houla killings.

U.N. officials say more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, have died and tens of thousands have been uprooted since the uprising began in March 2011. Opposition groups report a death toll of more than 11,000 people.

Sunday's Security Council session came a day ahead of a scheduled meeting between Syrian officials and Annan, the joint U.N.-Arab League special envoy on the crisis. Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague was headed to Moscow for talks in hopes of putting Russian pressure on al-Assad.

"We have had many differences of view with Russia at the Security Council, but Russia does support the Annan plan," Hague said in a statement from his office. "And so I hope Russia will redouble its efforts to get the Assad regime to implement that plan. It's not in the interests of Russia, just as it's not in the interests of anybody in the world, for Syria to descend in to an even bloodier situation and into full scale civil war and that is now the danger."

A U.N. report issued Friday said Syrian forces are still using heavy weapons in many areas despite the April cease-fire, and "The overall level of violence in the country remains quite high" despite the presence of U.N. monitors. Monitors have heard the sound of shelling in cities and towns and seen the aftereffects, their report states, while Syrian authorities say they were coming under fire from rebel troops.

Meanwhile, opposition groups effectively control "significant parts of some cities" the monitors state. But the government's stepped-up security crackdown "has led to massive violations of human rights" by Syrian troops and pro-government militias, the report states.

The United States joined the condemnation of the Sunday afternoon. National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor saying the United States was horrifed by "credible reports" of the massacre, "including stabbing and ax attacks on women and children."

"These acts serve as a vile testament to an illegitimate regime that responds to peaceful political protest with unspeakable and inhuman brutality," Vietor said in a written statement.

Israel, meanwhile, has largely kept quiet amid the tumult of the Arab Spring in the surrounding region. But Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his "revulsion" at the killings in Syria and its allies in Iran and the Lebanese Shiite Muslim militia Hezbollah.

"Iran and Hezbollah are an inseparable part of the Syrian atrocities and the world needs to act against them," Netanyahu said in a written statement.

Bron : CNN/ By the CNN Wire Staff