115th CONGRESS Printed for the use of the 

2nd Session Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Next Steps for Refugee and

Migrant Youth in Europe

JANUARY 23, 2018

Briefing of the 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington: 2018


CSCESeal.EPS
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Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe 

234 Ford House Office Building 

Washington, DC 20515

202–225–1901

csce@mail.house.gov 

http://www.csce.gov 

@HelsinkiComm

Legislative Branch Commissioners

HOUSE 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, NEW JERSEY

Co-Chairman 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, FLORIDA

ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, ALABAMA

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, TEXAS

STEVE COHEN, TENNESSEE

RICHARD HUDSON, NORTH CAROLINA

RANDY HULTGREN, ILLINOIS

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, TEXAS

GWEN MOORE, WISCONSIN

SENATE 

ROGER WICKER, MISSISSIPPI, 

Chairman 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN. MARYLAND

JOHN BOOZMAN, ARKANSAS

CORY GARDNER, COLORADO

MARCO RUBIO, FLORIDA

JEANNE SHAHEEN, NEW HAMPSHIRE

THOM TILLIS, NORTH CAROLINA

TOM UDALL, NEW MEXICO

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND

Executive Branch Commissioners

DEPARTMENT OF STATE

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

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ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION FOR SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Helsinki process, formally titled the Conference on Security and Cooperation in 

Europe, traces its origin to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in Finland on August 

1, 1975, by the leaders of 33 European countries, the United States and Canada. As of 

January 1, 1995, the Helsinki process was renamed the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The membership of the OSCE has expanded to 56 participating States, reflecting the breakup of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. 

The OSCE Secretariat is in Vienna, Austria, where weekly meetings of the participating States’ permanent representatives are held. In addition, specialized seminars and 

meetings are convened in various locations. Periodic consultations are held among Senior 

Officials, Ministers and Heads of State or Government. 

Although the OSCE continues to engage in standard setting in the fields of military 

security, economic and environmental cooperation, and human rights and humanitarian 

concerns, the Organization is primarily focused on initiatives designed to prevent, manage 

and resolve conflict within and among the participating States. The Organization deploys 

numerous missions and field activities located in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, the 

Caucasus, and Central Asia. The website of the OSCE is: <www.osce.org>. 

ABOUT THE COMMISSION ON SECURITY AND COOPERATION IN EUROPE 

The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki 

Commission, is a U.S. Government agency created in 1976 to monitor and encourage 

compliance by the participating States with their OSCE commitments, with a particular 

emphasis on human rights. 

The Commission consists of nine members from the United States Senate, nine members from the House of Representatives, and one member each from the Departments of 

State, Defense and Commerce. The positions of Chair and Co-Chair rotate between the 

Senate and House every two years, when a new Congress convenes. A professional staff 

assists the Commissioners in their work. 

In fulfilling its mandate, the Commission gathers and disseminates relevant information to the U.S. Congress and the public by convening hearings, issuing reports that 

reflect the views of Members of the Commission and/or its staff, and providing details 

about the activities of the Helsinki process and developments in OSCE participating 

States. 

The Commission also contributes to the formulation and execution of U.S. policy 

regarding the OSCE, including through Member and staff participation on U.S. Delegations to OSCE meetings. Members of the Commission have regular contact with 

parliamentarians, government officials, representatives of non-governmental organizations, and private individuals from participating States. The website of the Commission 

is: <www.csce.gov>. 

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Next Steps for Refugee and

Migrant Youth in Europe

JANUARY 23, 2018

Page 

PARTICIPANTS 

Dr. Mischa E. Thompson, Senior Policy Advisor, Commission on Security and Cooperation 

in Europe ...................................................................................................................................... 1

Kathleen Newland, Senior Fellow and Co-Founder, Migration Policy Institute, Washington, 

D.C. ............................................................................................................................................... 2

Sofia Kouvelaki, Executive Director, The HOME Project, Athens, Greece ................................ 3

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Next Steps for Refugee and

Migrant Youth in Europe 

January 23, 2018

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe

Washington, DC

The briefing was held at 10 a.m. in Room SVC 203, Capitol Visitor Center, Washington, DC, Dr. Mischa E. Thompson, Senior Policy Advisor, Commission for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe, presiding. 

Panelists present: Dr. Mischa E. Thompson, Senior Policy Advisor, Commission on 

Security and Cooperation in Europe; Kathleen Newland, Senior Fellow and Co-Founder, 

Migration Policy Institute, Washington, D.C.; and Sofia Kouvelaki, Executive Director, 

The HOME Project, Athens, Greece.

Dr. THOMPSON. Good morning. My name is Dr. Mischa Thompson, and welcome to 

‘‘Next Steps for Refugee and Migrant Youth in Europe,’’ a briefing hosted by the U.S. 

Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, also known as the Helsinki Commission. For those who may not know, the Helsinki Commission is an independent U.S. 

Government agency focused on human rights, economics, and security in the 57 North 

American and European countries that make up the Organization for Security and 

Cooperation in Europe, or the OSCE. The commission is chaired by Senator Roger Wicker, 

bicameral and bipartisan, and comprised of 12 members of Congress and the executive 

branch, including the U.S. State Department. 

The OSCE has had a focus on diverse and vulnerable populations, from Roma and 

Jewish populations to national minorities and migrants in Europe and the United States 

since its inception. This focus has increased in response to the recent influx of refugees 

and migrants in the region. This includes the creation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Migration, in which members of our Helsinki Commission 

participate, and ongoing initiatives by the OSCE to build the capacity of civil society and 

governments to respond. Our commissioners also serve as special representatives within 

the OSCE’s Parliamentary Assembly on trafficking and intolerance. 

Today we will discuss the current situation of refugee and migrant youth in Europe, 

with a focus on support, protection and integration services being put in place. This follows several events our commission held in 2017 focused on trafficking and arrivals by 

land and sea. I am very pleased to be joined today by expert Sofia Kouvelaki, Executive 

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Director of The HOME Project in Athens, Greece, an organization that addresses the 

needs of refugee children, and Ms. Kathleen Newland, Senior Fellow and co-founder of the 

Migration Policy Institute, one of Washington’s premier institutions on global migrant and 

refugee policy analysis. You can find their bios in the blue folders and online. 

And given that we only have an hour, I will begin by asking our speakers a few questions, after which we will have time for questions and discussion with our in-house and 

online audience. We are able to take comments via Facebook and can be followed under 

the Twitter handle @HelsinkiComm—so it’s Helsinki C–O-M–M. We should all be certain 

to speak loudly into our microphones today for our online viewers. With that, I will begin 

by asking Ms. Kathleen Newland to begin by giving us a short overview of what the current situation of refugees and migrants is in Europe. And how many people are we talking 

about, for example? Where are they coming from and why is it that they’re coming to 

Europe? 

Ms. NEWLAND. Thank you very much, Mischa. It’s a pleasure to be with you today 

and I’m delighted to meet Sofia. I’ve followed her work with great interest. 

The refugee and migrant situation—and these are categories that are often very hard 

to separate with a bright line, has—the good news, I suppose, is that it has gone down 

quite substantially from the peak of the crisis in 2015. But it still remains high, with hundreds of thousands of people arriving in Europe, mostly by sea. As you may know, an 

agreement between the EU and Turkey to disrupt the smuggling routes from Turkey to 

the Greek islands was put in place in March of 2016, and resulted in quite a sharp drop 

in the eastern Mediterranean route, and proportionally an increase in the much more dangerous, longer, and abusive central Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. 

We’re particularly concerned about youth in this briefing. And it’s very hard to get 

an accurate assessment of the numbers. Certain categories of children are counted fairly 

reliably, particularly those that formally apply for asylum. And there were about 400,000 

asylum applicants age 17 or younger in Europe in 2015 and 2016 alone. That was a huge 

increase over 2014. And the proportion of children, defined as those that are under 18, 

is—again, it’s not a very reliable proportion, but it’s assumed to be about somewhere 

between 15 and 20 percent. About 5 percent of those are unaccompanied children, who 

are obviously the most vulnerable. 

During this crisis from 2015 onward, the composition of the flow has changed quite 

dramatically. Before 2015, most of the youth arriving in Europe and claiming asylum were 

from the western Balkans—Kosovo, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, et cetera. But since 2015, 

the top countries of arrival for children have been Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. And I 

should point out that the recognition rates for those who apply for asylum from those 

countries is very high. It’s like 68 percent. So children who actually manage to file an 

asylum claim—which is not so easy in many countries—are recognized as being refugees 

at a very high rate. Of course, it varies from country to country. 

If I can just mention some of the problems—and I know Sofia will go into this in 

greater detail looking at Greece particularly—but some of the biggest problems are an 

acute lack of appropriate reception centers and shelters for children—for unaccompanied 

minors in particular, but also for families. Long wait times for asylum hearings, which 

sort of leaves people in limbo and inhibits their access to services. Detention of children 

is widely recognized as a terrible problem. And of course, it’s related to the lack of appropriate housing. And in the sort of middle and long term, there’s a great concern about 

the need for firewalls between access to public services and immigration enforcement. 

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This, of course, is particularly acute for undocumented children who are—data for undocumented is very poor, and causes all kinds of alarms. 

Last year the European Statistical Agency reported that 10,000 children had gone 

missing—were unaccounted for in Europe. And in that year, there were more than 10,000 

reported missing from Italy and Germany alone. So that was a nice round number that 

people sort of threw out there, but no one really knows what’s happened to those children, 

whether they were double counted to begin with, whether they reunited with their families or, in the worst-case scenario, whether they were trafficked and sort of disappeared 

into the criminal underworld. 

Let me stop there for the moment, Mischa. There’s lots more, and I’m sure other 

issues will come up in the discussion. 

Dr. THOMPSON. And I was actually hoping that you could really give us a first-hand 

account of what you are seeing in Greece in terms of arrivals from children, how they’re 

actually being treated when they first arrive in the country, and if we’re really seeing 

some of these policies in place that have long been talked about. 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. So thank you, Mischa. It’s a pleasure, Ms. Newland, to be on the 

same panel with you. 

And as Ms. Newland said, there are at the moment thousands of children that travel 

and arrive in Europe all alone. I think, in terms of child protection, the term migrant or 

refugee crisis cannot begin to explain the complexity of this phenomenon. The HOME 

Project is a nonprofit organization that, at the moment, has operations in Greece with a 

mission to offer protection, support, education, and social integration services to children 

that arrive in Greece, in Europe, all alone. After the EU–Turkey agreement, as Ms. 

Newland said, the general number of arrivals has decreased. However, the number of 

arrivals of unaccompanied minors is constantly increasing. 

A large part of this problem is that we don’t have exact numbers. So according to 

official estimates, since the beginning of 2016 around 11,000 unaccompanied minors have 

been officially registered. Now, of those, as we speak, 2,300 children in Greece are homeless. Which means they are in camps, in the streets, in detention. And if a child is not 

placed into a shelter, he or she cannot start to receive any kind of services, nor any 

information on their rights. These children are exposed to all sorts of dangers—from child 

abuse to organ trafficking to sexual exploitation, which is now a very urgent phenomenon 

in Greece, in the center of Athens, and on the islands. Children are prostituting themselves for survival. 

So it’s very urgent to provide all the adequate accommodation for these children in 

Greece and in Italy, which are the entry points of Europe, because integration starts at 

the point of entry. And those experiences follow these children all along. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Now, Ms. Newland, at the beginning in your first description of what’s happening you described a list of things that you’re seeing happening with 

children. So, detention, inability to get services, et cetera. Can you tell us what is actually 

supposed to be in place? What policies and procedures are supposed to be in place for children when they arrive at any of the European borders? 

Ms. NEWLAND. Yes, that’s a very fundamental question, Mischa. I’m glad you asked 

it. I think the first thing to understand is that all members of the European Union have 

signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The European Asylum and Migration 

law also incorporates the principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. And the 

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convention, which is the most ratified international treaty in the world—every country in 

the world has ratified it, except the United States—and it requires that a child is treated 

as a child first and foremost, and is protected regardless of their immigration status, 

regardless of their legal status, period. And that is across the board. It’s not divisible. 

You’re not supposed to separate groups of children and give them differential access to 

their rights. 

But in fact, that happens all the time. There is a sort of hierarchy of benefits and 

protection within Europe, which does depend on the legal status of the child. So children 

who are permanent residents have—generally speaking, have access to the same benefits 

and protections as citizen children. Asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors have a 

degree of protection, or are supposed to have a degree of protection—although, you know, 

the capacity of some of these states has really been overwhelmed by the volume of children arriving. And I can say a bit more about that. But at the sort of bottom of the hierarchy are undocumented children, those who haven’t applied for asylum, those who 

haven’t registered with any of the authorities. 

And while some countries—10 European countries give undocumented children the 

right to education, 9 give them the right to health care. But that’s out of 28 countries. 

So undocumented children have a particularly tough time. In addition, there are some 

really bad practices. Like, in Germany—which has received the largest number of refugees 

and asylum seekers overall—doctors are supposed to report on the immigration status of 

the children they see, which is obviously a huge inhibition for children from seeking medical care. I believe the same is Greece. So that’s a bad practice that really should be eliminated by the construction of firewalls. 

I think, to understand some of the public opinion around this issue, it’s also important to understand that the great majority, almost two-thirds of the children who arrive, 

are in their late teens, and they’re overwhelmingly male. So it’s 16-, 17-year-old boys who 

form the bulk of this population. And unfortunately, they are not seen as the most sympathetic group by many members of the public. And, when groups are prioritized by vulnerability, people don’t necessarily think of almost adult males as being the most vulnerable. 

But in fact, in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, they are the most vulnerable to forcible recruitment, to being killed in the context of these conflicts. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about how this is actually playing 

out in Greece? And so once you all are able to help provide housing to children—and Ms. 

Newland specifically talked about adolescent males. Can you talk a little bit about what 

that situation is actually looking like in terms of what HOME Project is doing? 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. I think the best way to answer your question would be to share a 

story with you. It’s the story of two Syrian brothers, Adnan and Ayaz, age 10 and 11 years 

old. Adnan and Ayaz were the oldest boys of a family of five children. They were living 

with the rest of their family in Aleppo. After the war broke out, and because of financial 

and security reasons, they had to move to Damascus. There, the two boys reported witnessing firsthand bombings, killings, decapitations, and all forms of violence. In 2013, 

their parents, together with their three younger sisters, started their journey to Europe. 

There weren’t enough resources to finance the move of the whole family, so the two 

brothers were left behind with their grandfather. 

Their family managed to reach Germany, following illegal routes through Greece. The 

two boys stopped going to school and started working at a hookah factory in order to support themselves. In 2015, the father managed to send enough money to finance their move 

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to Europe via smuggling networks. Adnan and Ayaz had to walk all the way to the 

Turkish coast through very dangerous routes. They report being physically and sexually 

abused by the trafficker along the way, as well as being held at a house for a month 

where we suspect they were repeatedly raped. 

They tried to reach Greece three times. The first two failed and the kids were 

arrested and returned and detained in a Turkish refugee camp, where they experienced 

even more violence. The third time, they managed to reach the Greek island of Chios. 

Ayaz and Adnan were detained for more than three months in a closed reception facility, 

co-existing with adults in horrible living conditions. One day, the youngest of the two 

brothers attempted to end his life. He tried to hang himself using his own t-shirt. His 

attempt failed because the t-shirt was torn. The child was hospitalized with his brother 

for five hours at the local hospital and then returned to the detention center due to a lack 

of appropriate accommodation on the island. 

We were notified by a volunteer regarding this case. And in collaboration with the 

public prosecutor for minors and the local authorities, we went to Chios and escorted the 

kids to one of our shelters. The kids are now safe, and they’re receiving a holistic network 

of services in The HOME Project shelter that covers their basic needs such as food, shelter 

of course, material provisions, medical support, psychological support, psychiatric supervision, education—they started going to school—and legal support. We have started all of 

the relevant legal and administrative processes to reunify them with their family in Germany. Both kids suffered from physical injuries when they arrived, PTSD, depression, and 

they were often resorting to self harm. 

Now, Adnan and Ayaz ended up in one of our shelters, so in a way they’re two of 

the fortunate lone refugee children. Sadly, this is not the case for the majority of the kids. 

At The HOME Project, we don’t work with refugees. We don’t work with migrants. We 

work with children—children that have been marginalized to the point of invisibility. Our 

mission is to provide support, protection, education, and social integration services to children that arrive in Greece, in Europe, all alone. We are currently supporting the operation 

of 10 shelters. Seven of them are for boys. Six out of the seven are for teenage boys, 12 

to 17, because this is the majority of the arrivals. But we also have a shelter for toddlers, 

and ages 6 to 11, because we are seeing arrivals—the percentage of younger unaccompanied minors is increasingly lately. And two of the shelters are for girls and unaccompanied minors—minor mothers with their babies. Our youngest child at the moment is 

three years old and our oldest is becoming 18 in the coming months. 

So The HOME Project shelter model is based on three pillars. First of all, we cooperate shelters with local and grassroots communities, where we offer a holistic network 

of services to the kids, offering them the coverage of their basic needs but also psychological, legal, and educational support. This is an integration model. At the moment we’re 

focusing a lot on skills building and training, because our ultimate purpose is for the children that will stay in Greece to be able to integrate into the job market. 

The second element of our work is that 50 percent of our staff comes from the refugee 

community itself, and the other 50 percent from Greek youth that also suffer from 45 percent unemployment. And the third element is that we find buildings that have been abandoned or unrented for a very long period of time—the victims of the Greek financial crisis. 

We renovate them with minimum cost, because we want most of our resources to be allocated to services for the children, and we pay the property taxes to the owner. So what 

we want to do is create a win-win situation for everyone—for the children, for the refuVerDate 0ct 09 2002 14:25 Apr 12, 2018 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 3194 Sfmt 3194 X:\_HS\WORK\28385.TXT NINA
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gees, but also for the Greeks. And we’ve seen this is the only sustainable way to create 

a community of support around the children. But also, that’s the only way we can fight 

racism, xenophobia, and violent local reactions. 

Dr. THOMPSON. That was a very difficult story to listen to, but one that I’m glad that 

you shared. It details a number of the things that children are going through, given that 

there aren’t necessarily safe routes to reach Europe at this point to escape some of the 

situations that they are currently present in. It also, I think, details what services are 

actually needed along the route. And as a staffer at the commission, I’ve been able to visit 

some of these places. I was able to see some of the shelters and actually see the children, 

and how they are receiving a secure place to be at this point, when you have interlocutors 

such as HOME Project and a number of other civil society and government organizations 

step in. 

As we heard earlier, it’s not enough. And one of the reasons I wanted to highlight 

I was able to see some of these things firsthand, is because there have also been a number 

of other policymakers that have been able to see these things firsthand. They know the 

issues. They know the problems. But as Ms. Newland indicated earlier, there seems to 

be something that’s not happening in terms of implementation. And I was hoping, Ms. 

Newland, you could talk a little bit about just where policymakers are on this issue in 

Europe, and why it is—despite maybe repeated policy documents and other things and 

really a call to better address this problem—we’re continuing to have stories such as the 

one that Ms. Kouvelaki outlined. 

Ms. NEWLAND. Well, there are many, many things you can criticize the governments 

for. And we have. And, you know, many groups continue to do that. I think it’s important 

to realize that some of the European governments are trying really hard. And look at a 

country like Sweden—with 5 million people, it’s a tiny country. They had 40,000 unaccompanied minors turn up 2015 into 2016, although in 2015 a third of all the unaccompanied 

minors went to Sweden, mostly Afghan older males. So for a small country like that, the 

facilities to deal with these children were just nowhere near adequate. And they tried very 

hard, but there are many failures. You could say the same of Germany. A much larger 

country, initially smaller numbers, but now in 2016 they were the top country of arrival 

for asylum applicants under the age of 17. 

So having said that, I think there is also, in some countries, and it’s been alleged 

in the European Union, that there’s a tendency to view these horrible reception conditions 

in Greece particularly—which bore the brunt of the 2015 arrivals—as a sort of deterrent. 

You know, if word gets around that you’re going to be in detention as a child with adult 

prisoners, in some cases that you may be kept literally in a prison or in a tented camp 

through winter conditions, that this might discourage people from coming. 

That is a completely unacceptable policy. And it is—I mean, it’s just profoundly 

shocking. And I’m sure Sofia can tell you more about that, and Mischa, she’s been there 

to see these conditions exist in Europe. I mean, it’s just the conditions in Europe are 

worse than they are in some of the countries in the region. And I would say they are definitely—although Turkey is considered part of Europe—in the EU, reception conditions in 

Greece are worse than they are in Turkey. 

So, in my view, there are reasons for terrible conditions prevailing in the emergency 

phase, and no one was expecting these arrivals and the numbers were very high. But two 

years later, and more, I think they’re beginning to run out of excuses. And their legal 

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obligation under both international and EU law to protect children really should be paramount. 

One of the other bad practices that is occurring now—and, again, you can sort of 

understand it from a policymaker’s point of view—is that family reunification policies 

have been tightened up. Germany is making it very difficult for recognized refugees in 

Germany to bring their families. So the Syrian brothers that Sofia was talking about, I 

hope they’ve arrived in Germany to join their family because it’s getting more difficult. 

And you know, that, again, it’s just sort of trying to control the numbers and better match 

the capacity to deliver services to the numbers. But it has really disastrous knock-on 

effects. 

Again, some of the countries—particularly Northern European countries—are trying 

hard to improve conditions, particularly for children, in education and health and housing. 

Sweden, for example, allows children to enroll in school even before their asylum cases 

are completed. But that is one thing, that there should be really minimal delays in getting 

children back into school. It’s the most sort of stabilizing investment, and investment in 

the future, that you can make. Similarly, for health care, many EU countries are trying 

to incorporate asylum seekers and refugees into their systems, but there are real practical 

barriers beyond just the legal barriers that have to be addressed—things like language 

and just knowledge of where to get help. 

A lot of emphasis now is on integrating these populations. But the integration task 

is—sort of goes along with a, let’s kind of freeze the numbers where they are so that we 

can integrate those who are here, rather than having a continuing stream. That is just 

not a realistic proposition as long as the conditions that are driving children and others 

out of Afghanistan, out of Iraq, out of Syria, continue to persist. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Given there is only an hour, we are going to open this 

conversation up to the audience. One of the questions I hope that will be answered during 

that time is to really think about how long it is children are expected to actually be in 

Europe. There have been leaders that have talked about children as actually being 

Europe’s economic future, given the declining birth rate in some countries. And what 

types of skills and things would actually be needed. And so I hope that’s something that 

we can also have come out during the question and answer period. 

But with that, we have someone with a microphone that will bring it to the audience 

member. Please say your name, what organization you’re with, and speak into the microphone for our online audience. 

QUESTIONER. Hi. Thank you very much for this presentation. It was extremely 

compelling. I’m Erika Schlager with the staff of the Helsinki Commission. 

And I think my question is for Ms. Newland. Last week the government of Hungary 

introduced a legislative package that is targeting organizations that provide humanitarian 

assistance to migrants. If you’re familiar with that legislative initiative, can you give me 

your thoughts on it and what it might mean if that were replicated elsewhere? 

Thank you. 

Ms. NEWLAND. Well, in answer to your last question, it would be a real disaster if 

it were replicated elsewhere, because the NGO community has picked up quite a bit of 

the slack in government capacity. And I think the Hungarian actions are part of the sort 

of populist wave in Hungary, which has been quite focused on the sort of anti-immigrant, 

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anti-refugee strand of the populist argument that has been very powerful in Hungary, and 

particularly, along with that, an anti-EU and anti-foreign strand. 

So the combination of a foreign headquartered humanitarian organization serving 

migrants and refugees is a particularly toxic one in Hungary. It’s also true that Hungary 

has been in the top 10 among destinations for young asylum applicants—for 17 and under 

asylum applicants. You know, it’s a country that until very recently really didn’t have refugee laws, didn’t receive migrants. This is all sort of quite new. And the institutional 

capacity just is not there. 

So the combination of a lack of capacity and the political environment has really 

made for an extremely, extremely difficult one for migrants and refugees, probably the 

most difficult one in the EU at the moment. And as you may know, Hungary is being 

reprimanded by the European Commission for its policies and its political rhetoric. 

Dr. THOMPSON. We’re going to go to both sides of the room. So we’ll come here and 

then we’ll come here. 

QUESTIONER. Hi. I’m Andrew Fallone with the Embassy of Liechtenstein, although 

I formerly was working with the Office of Migration and Integration in Freiburg, Germany. And we worked a lot with civil society actors to coordinate our efforts, as you 

addressed. 

Do you see the turn to more reliance on civil society actors—as many people in our 

office in Germany were very excited about—as detrimental, given that many, many actors 

will talk about how the United States model is so beneficial as it increases reliance on 

oneself and decreases reliance on one’s government? They talk about a sort of increased 

independence in integration. Yet, that can be dangerous when the United States model 

is based off of such a limited amount of integration for refugees, given that there’s no 

route from Libya to the United States, but there are routes from all sorts of places in 

Europe? 

And just given the amount of refugees, and specifically refugee children that countries are seeing, is a shift to—so, like the shift to new public management in Sweden—

a shift to more reliance on civil society actors instead of sound government policy dangerous for the long-term sustainable support of refugee children and refugees in general? 

Ms. NEWLAND. Well, that’s a great question. And I think—do you want to start with 

that? 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. At the moment in Greece there is a serious lack of adequate social 

welfare facilities to accommodate these children and provide the necessary services. So 

there’s a gap. There’s a gap in children’s protection, not only for refugee children but also 

for Greek children. So someone has to fill that gap, but it all depends on the way this 

is done. We try to operate with private sector standards. I mean, we were founded and 

we’re solely funded by the private sector. The Libra Group is our founding sponsor. And 

we have been recently scaled up by the Ikea Foundation. 

So the standards we are using are very high and transparent. There is always a way 

that civil society can operate. We try to be very inclusive in our model and include other 

NGOs with whom we collaborate. But our monitoring and evaluation and reporting 

mechanisms are quite of a high standard. Otherwise, we could not ensure the needed 

quality and quantity of services to provide support and care for the most vulnerable of 

the refugee and migrant population. But, I mean, were it not for the civil society, there 

wouldn’t be anyone else. So I guess it’s a very tough choice to make. 

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Ms. NEWLAND. I think in European countries with higher government capacity there 

has been quite a strong inclination to think that the government will handle all sorts of 

social service issues, both for the native-born population as well as for immigrants. That 

clearly has fallen apart during this crisis. And I think there is interest in Europe at 

looking at the U.S. model for refugee resettlement and the extent to which NGOs play 

a sort of key part in that. Now, those NGOs, in the first instance, the nine national resettlements, are funded by the government to do the initial stages of integration and 

settlement. But, I mean, there are a couple of things. 

For one, I think you really have to make a distinction between a resettlement program and an inflow of asylum seekers, because resettlement is planned for. You can 

anticipate needs and figure out where to place people and so on. When you have, as we 

have across the Mexican border, just an arrival—an unanticipated arrival of a lot of 

people, and particularly in that case children, it’s a much more difficult challenge, because 

people just aren’t prepared for it, and institutions aren’t prepared for it. So we have many 

of the same issues as the Europeans are facing. The conditions are not quite as dire as 

they are on the Greek islands, I think, but they’re pretty bad. Children are detained. 

There are very long waiting lists for asylum hearings—there’s a backlog of over 600,000 

now. So we face many of the same struggles, with access to education, access to medical 

care, and so on, with the children who arrive as asylum seekers in this country. 

Having said that, I think that there is a very good integration story, for the most 

part, in the United States. And that does result in part from a sort of tough-love policy, 

where refugees are expected to get on their feet and become self-sufficient in the shortest 

possible time. And we’ve looked at a number of studies on that at my institute, that 

keeping these populations dependent on government aid, making it possible for them to 

continue to depend on government aid, is not necessarily the best way for them to 

integrate. 

So I think as far as NGOs and government goes, it needs to be a partnership. It is 

a partnership here. I think that partnership is growing in Europe, but it has started from 

a much lower level because the social safety net funded by government has been much 

stronger in most European countries—but not all. 

Dr. THOMPSON. This gentleman in the front, please? 

QUESTIONER. Thank you. I’m Scott David with the State Department. 

In the sad story that Sophia told, if I have it right, these young boys originally, when 

they reached Greece, were on one of the islands. You said Chios, I think. And then made 

it to the mainland, which you didn’t say so but I got the impression that your shelters 

are on the mainland. 

So my question is, given the terrible conditions on the islands and the greater 

resources on the mainland, and recognizing the asylum process is very slow, as Kathleen 

just said, why has Greece been unable to move more of the people that are on the islands 

in these shelters, in these camps, to the mainland? 

Thank you. 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Well, the issue is the EU–Turkey agreement, to be perfectly honest. 

According to that agreement, after the 16th of March 2016, any refugee that enters Greece 

is not allowed to move to the mainland. Now, in theory, that is not the case for unaccompanied minors. But what has happened is that with the closure of the borders, the children are now trapped in Greece, because they used to use Greece as a transit point to 

10

go to Germany, Sweden, Austria, anywhere else. But now, the children are trapped. And 

all the relevant accommodation facilities are at full capacity. 

So that’s why the intervention that we are providing is very targeted. The goal is to 

increase the number of shelters in order to be able to move a child from the island to 

the mainland, because there are no available spaces, which is the problem at the moment, 

a child could not move. So they are imprisoned on the islands where, as Ms. Newland 

said, the situations are horrible. There are multiple violations of human rights and multiple threats to the mental and physical health of these children. So that’s why The 

HOME Project advocates for more available spaces, so that there’s no excuse to keep children in situations like that. 

QUESTIONER. So the agreement specifies that adults have to stay on the islands? 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Well, paradoxically, the word ‘‘children’’ is never mentioned in the 

text of the agreement. So now in theory, unaccompanied minors are considered the most 

vulnerable part of these arrivals, so they should be moved to the shelters. In theory, also, 

a child should never be detained. This is a violation of the Convention of the Rights of 

the Child. But unfortunately, that’s not what is currently happening. 

Ms. NEWLAND. I can just add to that, under the terms of the EU–Turkey agreement, 

Greece is—and European countries are entitled to return to Turkey any asylum seeker 

whose case is not accepted. So if people have already moved to the mainland, it’s more 

difficult to sort of move them back. They’re supposed to have their asylum cases heard 

on the islands, and then they can be sent back if their asylum cases fail. But, you know, 

there’s just nothing like enough capacity to hear these cases on the islands or, indeed, 

anywhere in Greece. But particularly on the islands. 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Exactly. Just to add to that, that asylum applications on the islands 

are rarely processed because there isn’t an adequate amount of staff or adequately trained 

staff to do that. So the implementation of the agreement is not really possible at the 

moment with the resources that exist. 

QUESTIONER. Hi, there. I’m Siobhan Spiak with CACI International. 

I have a question for The HOME Project. As far as getting arrivals—you said that 

right now you can’t really take people in right now. So what is the length of time that 

you let children stay? Is it up until they’re 18? Or how do you process them and help move 

them forward? 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Well, in the past year we’ve had a record of family reunifications. 

We’ve had 40 family reunifications, because we give a big emphasis to process those cases 

the fastest possible. So some of these children leave. But then the children are eligible 

to stay with us, according to law, until they reach the age of 18. In reality, we never let 

anyone go if we haven’t catered for their next step. A program that we’re currently doing 

is called the Youth to Youth Program, that we’re implementing in collaboration with the 

American Community School in Athens, where our kids buddy up with students from the 

school and they go to the campus and they do English, Greek, computer science, art, 

music, and sports. And the idea is, through education, to start integrating these children 

and bring them in touch with private sector stakeholders who will eventually offer jobs 

for these kids. So 10 of our kids will start working in April. It’s because the ultimate goal 

is integration; we never let anyone go without the next step. 

Ms. NEWLAND. And this is a huge problem in government programs and in many programs for youth generally, is that people age out of those programs. And there’s really 

11

very little for them after that. They just sort of get released and that’s it, which causes 

huge, huge problems. I mean, any country has reason to be concerned about a large population of unemployed young males without prospects. It’s a recipe for unhappy outcomes. 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. And if I can add something to that—this is the most sensitive, let’s 

say, population in terms of expressing the violence that they have experienced. If we don’t 

stop the cycle of violence, there’s a huge risk that at some point these children will have 

to express their anger and despair. And that can prove much more dangerous for European societies than actually integrating them. 

QUESTIONER. Hi. I’m Xander Kott from Congresswoman Norton’s office. 

My question is, would you guys say that a bigger obstacle to helping these children 

integrate would be the lack of resources? Or would you say that it’s more of the political 

climate and the political opposition to doing that? 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Well, in the Greek case, we’re not talking about 1 million or an 

unsolvable number. It’s 2,300 children. So if The HOME Project, with the support of our 

donors, managed to accommodate 200 children in one year, this is a problem that can be 

solvable, because very often we hear that this crisis is overwhelming or it can’t be solved. 

And this is the best excuse not to do anything. 

Ms. NEWLAND. Yes, I think there’s a sort of iterative relationship between the lack 

of resources and the lack of political support. If communities have—or see children coming 

in and it’s obvious how great their needs are for education, for health care, for psychological support in particular, and everybody knows those things cost money, and these are 

mostly pretty high tax environments anyway. So there’s a sort of potential wedge there. 

And it’s been great to see in many European countries the outpouring of support from 

civil society and from civil society organizations. But on the other hand, we’ve also seen 

the rise of populist movements who target refugees in particular, and who play on this 

argument, ‘‘why are we spending money on these people when we have great needs at 

home.’’

So the lack of resources and the political potential toxicity of this argument sort of 

play into each other in a way that can be very difficult if leadership decides to try to take 

advantage of that politically. And it’s happening probably most prominently in Hungary, 

but by no means only in Hungary. Also in many of the Eastern or the former Soviet countries, former Soviet bloc countries, that have very limited experience with receiving refugees or migrants are seeing this kind of populist fringe in some cases, not so fringe in 

others. 

QUESTIONER. Good morning. My name is Allison Hollabaugh. I’m counsel at the Helsinki Commission, and I’d like to thank both of you for your attention to this issue and 

keeping us up to date on the latest details that we can use in our policies here. 

My question is for Ms. Kouvelaki. Thank you so much for your work on the front 

lines with these children. I’m wondering if you have heard of cases, such as we’ve heard 

out of the Nordic countries, where children are being trafficked from the shelters themselves? So living at the shelters at night, but then during the day disappearing and 

coming back with new cellphones and other things that would indicate sexual exploitation 

during the day. And if you have any suggestions for best practices that are most effective 

in helping to prevent those types of situations while respecting the freedom of the children, as well as to make them want to stay in the shelters voluntarily. 

12

Ms. KOUVELAKI. You just brought up an issue that—you know, it happens. And we 

have to remember the situations these children are coming from. And what we also have 

to remember is that because of the EU–Turkey agreement and the conditions on the 

island, the kids have lived for a very long time in horrible conditions. And so some of the 

children—I mean, all of the children that arrive in our shelters have been physically 

abused. Many have been sexually abused. Many had to resort to child prostitution. And 

the shelters are not prisons, so we don’t lock the children in. It’s like a home with parents 

that take care of their children. 

Sometimes if we have 16- or 17-year-olds, we can’t really lock them in. The only way 

we can try and prevent them from getting involved in criminal or illegal networks, let’s 

say, is by giving attention to what is happening in the house, in the home, to be able 

to provide individualized care to them to cover their basic needs, but also give emphasis 

on their mental health. More than 35 percent of our children suffer from serious mental 

health issues. And we’ve seen that with time and with the right support they start 

trusting us. And they start not wanting to go out of the house, in the sense of getting 

involved in illegal activities. 

So I think the only solution to that is love, really, and the improvement of the 

quantity and the quality of care, to answer it in a more professional way. But children 

need a support system, a loving system. They need parents. Our staff has to substitute 

for the missing family and the missing social welfare state. And when that happens, we 

increase the chances of having the kids safe. 

QUESTIONER. Thank you. Jimmy Athanaspoulos from Libra Social. 

The breadth and depth of the services provided to these children is amazing. What 

is the cost of these services, which is an holistic approach as we can hear—what is the 

cost of that? And how is that compared to the government-run and -operated shelters? 

Thank you. 

Ms. KOUVELAKI. Well, we had to operate with private sector standards, meaning that 

we had to be very efficient and immediate in our operations. Just to give you an idea, 

the per unit, per child cost per day is around 20 euros, where in government-funded facilities it can be three times larger than our costs. So we try to operate with a minimum 

cost to provide the best quality of care in order to be able to have a sustainable

intervention. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I would like to thank you both for being here today. If there was a 

comment that you wanted to make as a way of wrapping up, I would love to allow you 

to have closing remarks. 

Ms. NEWLAND. Oh, thank you. Well, I think we’ve covered a lot of ground. And the 

bottom line here is really to observe the standards set up in the Convention on the Rights 

of a Child, not just as a matter of legal obligation but a matter of human response—

treating children as children, understanding the needs that they have, and really trying 

to serve and protect them, as The HOME Project is doing. It’s a very sort of shining 

example of good practice. And I hope it will inspire many others to follow that model. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Again, thank you both so much for being here today. We at the 

commission are very pleased that you were able to travel here from Greece. I think, as 

has been mentioned before, you’re one of the few voices that talks about children as children, and really helps to humanize the situation so that people see beyond the numbers. 

13

I think as we’ve heard today, refugee and migration flows are continuing. This isn’t a 

situation that’s going to end tomorrow. 

While there are promising practices, there are a number of systems that just are not 

firmly in place, and in some cases the political will is also not in place to address the 

myriad of needs of youth. The reality is, these children are not only Europe’s future, 

North Africa’s future, the Middle East’s future—we’re in a global world. It’s also our 

future. And so there’s a real need to continue the focus on this issue, work together where 

we can, and really begin to embrace some of the promising practices that we’ve heard 

here, but also not get so mired in some of the problems and conflicts that we can’t begin 

to work together on solutions. 

And so, with that, I thank everyone for being here. And we will be around for 

another, I think, 10 minutes or so for anyone who has questions afterwards. 

Thank you. [Applause.] 

[Whereupon, at 11:03 a.m., the briefing ended.] 

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