As previously mentioned, the Autonomous City of Melilla has several centers, including one where only migrant children and youth (from 12 to 18 years old) reside. This center, which currently has 160 places, is responsible for their custody, while the Autonomous City, through the Department of Social Policies, Public Health, and Animal Welfare, takes care of the guardianship of the minors. Therefore, both entities have the responsibility to ensure the care and protection of children and to address their needs, understood from a comprehensive perspective, as set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Organic Law on the Legal Protection of Minors (LOPJM), and Article 39.4 of the Constitution, among others.
The center, located on the outskirts of Melilla and just a few meters from the border with Morocco, is a former military barracks. Over nearly two decades of operation, the center has accumulated numerous complaints involving both staff and the facilities themselves. To this day, the center continues to fail to meet the basic needs of the children, from elementary issues like clothing to more complex problems such as conflict mediation.
However, this is the place where many of the young people who arrive in Melilla spend their daily lives: in a former military barracks surrounded by a fence, located on the outskirts of the city. Adjacent to garbage dumps, the fence, and the cemetery… “Fortress Europe” gives them its “welcome.”
Centres like this, with euphemistic names, alongside the forts, fences, advanced surveillance, and multiple security forces, create a complex and intertwined system that produces and reproduces perverse logics that push away those who should actually be protected. The fact that they are children and youth does not make these young people subjects of protection. Rather, it turns them into non-deportable actors living in “containment” centers.
In the face of this systemic lack of protection, and the securitizing logic that dominates state actions, it seems that, at times, the alternatives end up being reduced to the binary of "street or risky."
Street
It is common for the vast majority of children and youth to use the center only to sleep due to the expulsive logics that characterize it. At times, they are found on the street early in the morning, expressing their desire “not to return to the center.” This exposes them to an even greater vulnerability and risk.
It is clear that the spaces on the margins of Melilla's streets do not provide healthy environments or relationships free from danger. These spaces place minors in a situation of neglect, despite the fact that their care is the responsibility of the Department of Social Policies and the Center.
At midnight, the center conducts a headcount, comparing it to the list in each module. If any of the young people haven’t gone to sleep, the institution registers a voluntary absence, which must then be reported to the National and Local Police, triggering a search protocol— a protocol that is rarely activated.
The next day, the number of absences is recorded in an incident report. As the center operates on an open regime, minors can come and go without restrictions. There are no legal means to deny a child’s exit, however, once they leave the center, no follow-up is conducted (González de Heredia, 2017, p.45).
“Risky”
The system of social policies pushes migrant children and minors not only into a situation of homelessness but also into the practice of "risky." The term "risky," derived from the English word "risk," refers to dangerous travel techniques used to move from one place to another, typically on alternative routes, when one cannot meet the criteria for “safe routes.” The term has different names depending on the border region, and in the case of Bosnia, this practice is called “game.” In the port of Melilla, it involves trying to hide underneath trucks that board ferries with the aim of reaching the Spanish mainland.
In practice, not only minors and youth attempt this, but sometimes adult asylum seekers decide to engage in this “exercise” after prolonged waiting times. Most of the young people in the Center and those living on the streets do not seek to remain in Melilla; they see the city as the gateway to Europe. Therefore, the situation of neglect often leads to the desire to engage in “risky” behavior in an attempt to reach the Peninsula.
In the city and from the administration, the practice of this action has become normalized. If a young person disappears from the city, it is assumed that they have fled by sea, as the Social Welfare Councilor once stated in an interview (González de Heredia, 2017). It appears that the authorities “let the children be” on the street, with the supposed hope that if they leave, it will be on a boat, disappearing forever from the streets of the city.
In the absence of effective protection tools for these young people, they are left in the informal sector (Floristán, 2022, p.316). The ambivalence between their migratory status, which makes them objects of deportation, and the guardianship exercised by the Center and the Autonomous City, which makes them entitled to protection, results in institutional mistreatment that facilitates these more dynamic and informal strategies (Op. cit, 2022, p.307).
It is striking that, despite the seriousness of the events that have been reported through the media and complaints, there is no genuine concern for the physical and psychological integrity of migrant children and youth. As a result of these practices, we can observe that the city does not effectively assume responsibility for their guardianship.
These actions reveal, once again, the way migration is socially constructed and conceived, influenced by government policies focused on securitization, as well as by administrations, the media, and the cultural industry. Discourses and narratives that once again make it difficult to reconsider models of care that are welcoming, protective, and emancipatory.
We believe it is urgent to go beyond individual cases and ask: What makes children and youth prefer the street over sleeping in a center? What drives these children to risk their lives trying to cross to the mainland? And, above all, when did we start to normalize this?
Bibliography
Abderrahman, J. M. (2023). Resiliencia en los jóvenes que han migrado solos a Melilla. Universidad de Granada.
Floristán Millán, E. (2022). Acompañando a Mohamed. Reflexiones en torno al movimiento de la juventud harraga. Antropología experimental(22), 307-317.
González de Heredia, R., Díaz Velasco, I., Pérez, Á., Toharia, M., & Assiego, V. (2017). Rechazo y abandono: Situación de los niños que duermen en las calles de Melilla. Universidad de Comillas.
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