Afghanistan: Child Asylum Seekers

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, part of the service of providing assistance for reintegration will be to find these children’s families if they have not found them and to attempt to get them a job and an education. Actually, these young people are being helped to be put in a position that they might not have been in when they left their country. I do not think that we are doing them a disservice. On the question of wider immigration and deportation arrangements, that will obviously depend on the circumstances of each country, as the noble Lord knows.

[Lord Avebury]

My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister invite the organisations that have expressed concern about whether these arrangements are in the best interests of the child, including the UNHCR, Refugee and Migrant Justice, the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society, to a meeting so that she can explain the provisions and reassure them? Secondly, given that Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are all planning to return children to Afghanistan, while Norway is building a hostel similar to the one that we propose, would not pan-European arrangements for the reception of these children in Afghanistan be better than every state making its own arrangements?

[Baroness Neville-Jones]

My Lords, we have a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan Government about the return of such individuals, to which the UNHCR is party. We work with all the parties to ensure that the terms that I am trying to set out are observed. The noble Lord referred to other interested organisations. My understanding of the position of Refugee Action is that, provided that the conditions are right, which is the proviso that we are trying to meet, it does not have any principled objection to the return of children of this age in the circumstances that are being provided. As for other interested parties, of course I am happy to meet Refugee Action and I intend to make that part of my duties.