The UK Border Agency is to set up a £4m “reintegration centre” in Afghanistan so that it can start deporting unaccompanied child asylum seekers to Kabul from Britain, the Guardian can disclose.
The terms of the official tender for the centre show that immigration officials initially hope to forcibly return 12 boys a month aged under 18 to Afghanistan and provide “reintegration assistance” for 120 adults a month.
Home Office figures show there are more than 4,200 unaccompanied child asylum seekers in Britain, with most being supported in local authority social services homes. Those from Afghanistan are the largest group. Of the 400 minors claiming asylum in the first three months of this year, almost half were Afghans.
A decision to start deporting Afghan child asylum seekers who arrive in Britain alone would amount to a major shift in policy. Up until now, child protection issues and an undertaking that failed child asylum seekers would be returned only if adequate reception and care arrangements were in place for them on arrival have blocked returns.
The British plans form part of a wider European move to plan the return of unaccompanied migrant children to Afghanistan. Norway has also announced plans to open a reception centre in Kabul. Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are also reported to be preparing to return Afghan children to Kabul.
All hail the ConDems-
The immigration minister, Damian Green, said tonight: “No one should be encouraging children to make dangerous journeys across the world. Therefore we are looking to work with other European countries, such as Norway, and valued international partners, such as Unicef, as well as the Afghan government, to find ways to help these young men and women in their home countries and to return those who are in the UK safely to their home nations with appropriate support once they arrive.”
‘No one should be encouraging children to make dangerous journeys across the world.’ He’s really just too funny. Clearly Kabul is probably THE safest capital city on earth, also we are in Afghanistan for humanitarian reasons, the Afghan government is not full of warlords and fundamentalists who stole the election and UNICEF will be totally on board with this plan as the minister would not just use their name as a fig leaf distraction on a policy before they have even been consulted, oh no indeedy. After all UNICEF reports how rosy things are in Afghanistan home to Kabul the safest capital city on planet earth ™-
Afghanistan has been in a state of complex emergency for over the past twenty years. The country’s infrastructure and systems have been largely destroyed. An estimated 22 million Afghans, or 70% of the population, live in poverty and substandard conditions. 40% children less than three years old are underweight and 54% of under five are stunted. Over 100,000 people – most of them children and women – remain displaced by conflict and drought. The security situation in the country is deteriorating; more areas have fallen into active military operation zones between the Government/Coalition forces and Anti-Government Elements (AGE), which hampers humanitarian operations and access to affected populations. In 2007, approximately 40-50 per cent of the districts in the country were not accessible to UN missions for extended periods due to insecurity and movement restrictions. Southern provinces and some provinces in the west, east and southeast are most affected. Owing to the shortage of wheat flour in Pakistan, residents of many areas in Afghanistan, including the central capital Kabul, are currently suffering from increasing prices of basic commodities and food shortages.
Yep that’s exactly where every responsible (humanitarian interventionist) adult would want a child to be, I can’t see a single problem with this plan. 10 NATO troopers killed on deadly Afghan day. Nope not a one, it’s like a big fun-filled creche in fact. You know how in the leadership debates they all demagogued immigration like their life depended on stealing votes from the BNP? Well here’s the reality of our wondrous consensus neoliberal state, wars causing refugees we don’t even have the decency to give refuge to. No wonder they want an imperialism loving faux historian and Islamphobe to rewrite the schools syllabus, Britons never, ever, ever shall be in the wrong!
