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Aug 287 min read

Childrens‘s centers

What do we think of when we imagine a suitable place for child or youth development? We imagine that, if we could read your answers, they would be very varied, just as we think that none of them would say: a former military barracks.



The Autonomous City of Melilla has several centres, among them, one where only migrant youth and children (from 12 to 18 years old) in distress reside, whose competences are, as they point out:


  • To offer shelter with the necessary physical and psychological care.


  • To elaborate, design and evaluate the individualised educational project of each of the minors, taking into account their evolutionary stage.


  • Identify and eliminate the uprooting effects suffered by some unaccompanied minors.


  • Offer minors a time and space that allows them to clarify and calibrate the options available to them so that they can face conflictive situations (Autonomous City of Melilla, 2019).


As can be seen, it is the Autonomous Communities, and in this case, the Autonomous City, that are responsible for the guardianship of children declared to be in distress, establishing their own criteria and resources in each case (guidelines that differ according to each of the regional administrations).


The centre, located on the outskirts of the city of Melilla and a few metres from the border with Morocco, happens to be a former military barracks. It belongs to the Regional Ministry of Social Policies, Public Health and Animal Welfare, although it is managed by a private company from Zaragoza. It has a capacity of 160 places, with between 80 and 100 young people currently living in the centre, which is organised into 4 long-stay modules and 1 first reception module (Antúnez et.al, 2016). In this centre, as in society in general, child protection laws converge and come into tension with the laws on foreigners, with the latter taking precedence over the former in this case.



At the national level, there are two different models of foster care: family foster care[1], which consists of the young person living with a family, and residential foster care, where the child or young person resides in a centre run by the administration. In both cases, foster care takes place in a situation of helplessness, when the young person is not under the guardianship, care and custody of his or her parents or guardians. Once the child or young person is under the guardianship of the Administration, the work of the reception centre has a triple dimension: welfare (health care, meeting physical needs), preventive (information, guidance, emotional support) and educational (schooling, professional initiation, socialisation, free time) (García, 2016, p.7).


In the almost two decades that this institution has been operating as a centre for minors - as we have already mentioned, it was previously a military barracks - the centre has been collecting complaints that implicated both workers and the facilities of the centre itself. The lack of evidence, changes of version in court and the impossibility of locating the people involved years after the allegations were made are some of the factors behind the acquittals and files (Quirante and Bautista, 2019).


This, however, is the place where many of the young people who arrive in Melilla go about their daily lives. In a fenced-off former military barracks that functions as a welfare centre and is located on the outskirts of the city.


Bordering rubbish dumps, the fence and the cemetery... the ‘Fortress Europe’ ‘welcomes’ them. 
Emulating a prison discipline of early morning hours, fenced windows or ‘anti-suicide’ bars, young people and children go about their daily lives under prison parameters.

The centre's problems contrast with the dynamic business behind its management, awarded to a company from Zaragoza through several contracts that have been extended uninterruptedly since 2006 (Quirante and Bautista, 2019). Since 2014, the Aragonese company, present in 24 provinces with social projects of all kinds, has hardly known any competitors in successive public tenders. Currently, the contract is deserted, a fact that has led the Autonomous City to decide to draw it up again, making it more attractive to companies ‘that risk their capital by bidding’ (Morales, 2024).


Is this the interest to be pursued, is it the market perspective that should govern, and is it really the interests and business interests that are at the centre of the outsourcing of this service?


The focus should not be lost when we talk about children and young people, their rights and the protection that the Autonomous City should provide. Being a service that emanates from and should be provided by the Administration, from ‘the public’, is outsourcing and subcontracting through companies the best way to guarantee the protection of children and young people?


“Due to a lack of investment, communication or a firm commitment to foster care, the centre model has been imposed quantitatively, despite being more costly and detrimental to children's development. In recent years, the number of centres has increased. In 2019, 124 more residences were added, bringing the total to 1,228 throughout Spain; most of them are managed by entities (NGOs, associations, foundations, religious congregations and also companies) (922, 80%) and the remaining 20% (224) are publicly owned. As can be seen, this is a highly subcontracted sector, with a high proportion of private agents managing a total of 18,145 places (Cabrera, 2021)”.


The 2020 contract, extended until 7 January 2021 and extended to 2022 by ‘emergency contracting’, amounted to 4,868,643.08 euros (4,773,104.10 euros for 2021 and 91,538.98 euros for 2022) (Consejería del menor y Familia, 2021). In 2019, a year in which the centre housed numerous young people beyond its capacity (with the consequent oversaturation and worsening of services), the company received a supplement of 13.88 euros per day for each of the 660 children and adolescents who resided simultaneously in the centre in 2019 (with a capacity for 350 people) (Quirante and Bautista, 2019).


The specifications that govern the management of the institution draw an ideal scenario: they contemplate a staff of 10 professionals in the technical team, 94 direct care professionals, 1 administrative and 27 auxiliary professionals, which makes a total of 132 people hired (Consejería del Menor y la Familia, 2021).


Finally, we must bear in mind that once the young person turns 18, he or she ceases to be under the guardianship of, in this case, the autonomous city, losing the right to be in a centre. In many cases, the networks do not achieve the objectives set out in the personalised itineraries and many of the young people, whose residence permits are sometimes not processed, are left in a situation of lack of protection. The difficulties faced by minors under the protection services after reaching the age of majority and leaving the protection system are therefore aggravated in migrant children and youth, sometimes due to their lack of family and social roots, and to the difficulties in not only renewing the authorisation to reside in the country but also in applying for it, sometimes for the first time (García, 2016, p.5).


The way in which migration is socially constructed and conceived, influenced by government policies focused on securitisation, border control and migratory flows, as well as by administrations, the media and the cultural industry, hinders the possibility of reconsidering models of care that are welcoming, protective and emancipatory. In addition, the non-existence of a single register, the lack of coordination between administrations and the overlapping of public authorities with competences in this area, means that there is no detailed and concrete register of the situation of migrant youth and children in Spain (Puyo et.al, 2021).


The multiplicity of administrations and public agents involved in the issue, the contradiction between child protection laws and immigration laws, the practices regarding the age determination procedure, the overcrowding in centres that have sometimes become saturated, the reception in centres that are not specific facilities for migrant children and youth, such as a former military barracks, or the negligence on the part of the centres and administration in processing the residency of young people are just some of the bad practices that occur in these centres.


We wonder, then, in what corner of dehumanisation lies the certainty that these are places that are conducive to the protection that the state should provide? Migrant children and young people deserve the treatment and social and institutional guarantees provided for all adolescents, without distinction of any kind.

[1] Both legislation and jurisprudence agree that foster care should be a preferential alternative to residential care in children's centres (Puyo et.al. 2021, p.1). However, in practice this is not the case. In 2021, 23,209 children under the care of the administration were living in centres, compared to 19,320 in foster care. Three years ago, therefore, there were 4,000 more children institutionalised than living in a home (Cabrera, 2021).



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