Las Palmas de Gran Canaria It is not known how, but they got in touch with NO, the activist of the citizen organization Somos Red, whom they called in the morning of Friday, November 24 to ask for help. “I couldn’t do nothing, I had to act”, she explains. A group of migrant minors has reported episodes of abuse and harassment at the reception center in the Canary Islands where they were, managed by the Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI. The last, a “brutal beating” – in the words of the activist – of one of the minors by two workers of the center. “One was holding him and the other was punching him,” he explains. This was the trigger for a group of twelve minors to leave the center – and walk for about three hours – to report the facts that are already being investigated by the child and adolescent violence court number 3 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
From Somos Red they explain that the boys had to travel a long way before they did not accept the complaint. At the San Cristóbal de Las Palmas police station in Gran Canaria, according to them, they were not attended to and sent to the Las Palmas guard court, but “neither the court nor the prosecutor adopted any precautionary measures, despite knowing that they are minors and that they would not return to the center”, explains the lawyer specialized in foreigners and human rights Loueila Mint El Mamy, who adds: “Imagine that a minor who suffers violence at the hands of his parents goes to the police station to file a complaint and is told “get out of here” and go to court, they listen to him, but no one takes any action and he stays for five days sleeping on the street. This is a situation of omission by everyone who can do something about it but they don’t do anything.”
Somos Red is a citizens’ organization that was created in 2020 to respond to the arrival of migrants. They are organized through commissions. The one that has never stopped working is the commission sandwiches, which gives food to people who are left on the streets due to administrative situations. The legal commission, however, had remained dormant until November 24 itself, when it was placed at the service of Somos Red to accompany the twelve minors. They have submitted a letter to the Prosecutor’s Office to notify “the situation of lack of protection experienced by these minors on the part of those who protect them, the government of the Canary Islands and more specifically the Directorate General of Child Protection and the Ministry of Social Rights” , says El Mamy.
“The truth is that they have been very brave to report”, says NO, who explains that the situation in the reception centers for migrant minors who arrive on the island, in general, is very “complicated” and that the workers themselves have afraid to report The Canary Islands protection system currently houses 4,462 migrant minors and has a total of 58 active devices, according to the government. The NGO Save The Children already said in a statement at the beginning of November that the system was working with “little foresight”, and “a lack of personnel and material from both state and regional institutions”. The Fundación Respuesta Social Siglo XXI manages the reported center, but for months now the Anticorruption Prosecutor has been investigating it for alleged diversion of public funds received between 2020 and 2022. The newspaper ARA has contacted the Foundation but so far not yet has received no response.
Helplessness and lack of protection
On the day of the events, the group of minors, not knowing where to go, or where to sleep and dead from the cold, waited. “They sent me a photo of a park”, explains NO Organic law 8/2021 on comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence provides that any minor, regardless of nationality, has the right to information and advice However, the letter presented by the Somos Red legal team describes a chain of omissions by the “security forces and bodies”, the “health services” and the “judicial authority” that do not act accordingly according to the law on the protection of minors. “From the judicial, police and prosecutor’s point of view, everything that happens to the so-called menas [menors estrangers no acompanyats] it is their responsibility”, concludes El Mamy.
As reported by the Efe agency, the general director of Protection for Children and Families in the Canary Islands, Sandra Rodríguez, has commissioned a technical report on the reported minors’ center claiming that “if the report detected that there had been violated the rights of migrant minors, the center would be closed as a precautionary measure”, a fact that has not happened. On the contrary, Somos Red staff say they are very concerned about the situation of a small group of boys who returned to the center. “How come they say there was no abuse and violence if they went to report just that?” he asks. NO In fact, before the young people went to the police to file a report, the director of the center himself , OMB, would have already gone to the police to report one of the workers for the alleged acts.
It wasn’t until five days later that “in a last-minute move”, explains NO, a solution was found to accommodate the rest of the minors who are waiting to see how the criminal procedure progresses. On the other hand, both Save The Children, which is also following the case, and the legal commission of Somos Red have submitted a letter to the Prosecutor’s Office – which has already forwarded it to the court handling the case – notifying the “situation of lack of protection” of minors
2023-12-08 13:25:55
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