Guardians’ cry for help: The safety of young asylum seekers at risk due to the reception crisis | Inland

Rarely did so many children and young people arrive in the Netherlands from war zones. Up to and including September, the counter already stands at 2,706 asylum applications from so-called unaccompanied minor aliens (AMVs). That is more than twice as many as in the same period last year. Due to a severe shortage of reception places for asylum seekers, this young, vulnerable group who made a long, dangerous journey without their parents is in extra danger.

More than 250 unaccompanied minors have been staying in the Ter Apel application center for weeks, while there is actually only room for 55. “We are very concerned about the safety of those young people,” says Nidos director Tanno Klijn. At night, young people are forced to sleep on chairs in waiting rooms or being dragged from emergency shelter to emergency shelter. “This makes it difficult to start school or to build a social network. We now sometimes house young people in places that we never expected would be necessary.”

Nidos directors rarely speak to the media. The organization automatically receives guardianship of all UMAs arriving in the Netherlands from the government. “We want to take care of the young people, who benefit from rest. But the urgency is now so high that we have to make ourselves heard.” The Ombudsman for Children and the Inspectorates for Justice and Security and Healthcare and Youth have also raised the alarm in recent months. They found that the young people sometimes have no access to education or medical care, that they live for long periods of time unsupervised and sleep in shelters that are dirty. Some of the teenagers there were younger than 15 years old.

Klijn calls the situation ‘very frustrating’. “We can’t offer good guidance. We are mainly concerned with sticking plaster on plaster.” A letter from State Secretary Van der Burg (Asiel), reception organization COA and Nidos to all municipalities this autumn to come up with small-scale shelters for young people as quickly as possible, yielded little. “We now have five, while 350 additional houses are needed.” The organization is at a loss: ,,We simply don’t understand why it doesn’t work. This is exactly the small-scale reception that municipalities always ask for.”