Illegal Immigration
Minors in Spain: A controversial subject
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- Minors in Spain: A controversial subject
In an apartment in downtown Madrid, four Moroccan teenagers live illegally. But no one is allowed to come in – and certainly not the press – except the cook and the teenagers’ teachers. These young people are between 15 and 17-years old. They study, learn an industrial trade, and eat together every day. A short while ago, they were street children, wandering around the port of Tangiers in northern Morocco.
One day, lumping onto a passing truck, they entered Spain illegally, well aware that if they succeeded in getting into the European “Eldorado” the law prevents them from being deported and requires them to be given a roof over their heads, meals and an education.
They have a street-culture attitude, which is understandable, as it is all they know. They come from broken families. Their teeth are ruined by the glue that they have sniffed. They are extremely unhygienic, and don’t follow any of the rules for living together. They have to be taught everything.
Esther, a young woman of 21, knows all about it. She has been in charge of this apartment and the four Moroccan teenagers who have been living there since 2005 – even though the guardianship and expenses are covered by the government in Madrid, which “protects” them from the outside world. “Some days are really complicated,” she sighs. She has good reason to: until now abandoned to their fate and prone to drug use (glue and cocaine), these minors have many obstacles to overcome on their way to integration, in the hope of finding jobs when they are old enough. Despite being so young they have to act like adults, because they are the “heads” of loosely extended families in Morocco who are counting on them to find work in Spain and then send them money. It is estimated that there are about 2,000 minors on the peninsula, the majority of whom are Moroccan. Until now, they have been crossing the straits of Gibraltar, via Algesiras or Tarifa. But increasingly often they are risking their lives, setting out on “cayucos” (small fishing boats) from the coast of West Africa, heading for the Spanish archipelago of the Canary Islands. At the moment, about 800 adolescents are parked in a handful of centers for minors scattered over five islands. They will eventually be transferred a few at a time to the Iberian peninsula.
Offered help by various organizations in Spain, these youths can’t conceive of having a future anywhere else, since the countries that they come from have nothing to offer them. The problem is that Spanish law is obliged to send them back if their family of origin can be identified – and around 15 per cent of them are eventually sent home.
“For those of us who take care of them, it’s a catastrophe,” says Enrique Barbero, from ACCEM, an association based in Madrid which takes care of migrants and runs 11 youth centers in Spain.
“In fact, when one of these minors is repatriated, money has been wasted. It is even more counterproductive, as all these repatriated minors just emigrate again, but this time carrying a lot more suppressed rage.”
ATIME, the main association of Moroccans in Spain, shares these misgivings. As does Mariam, Deputy Director of the organization: “As soon as a minor who is housed in an apartment in Spain finds out he’s going to be sent back, he tries to run away.”
Where do they go? According to ATIME, they often end up in the clutches of mafia gangs, which use the teenagers in clandestine workshops or for street sales of CDs or DVDs.
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