Nearly half of the 1,500 migrant children currently in Ceuta are girls, many of them younger than 13, Spain’s minister for children and youth said Thursday.
Minister Sira Rego said many of the girls are particularly vulnerable, including some who fled severe violence and have no family to return to. Some boys, she added, had been living on the streets before arriving in Ceuta.
“These children are not invaders,” Rego said, calling for a humanitarian response to the situation and greater support for the Spanish enclave’s overwhelmed social services.
The Spanish government has approved €25 million in funding for Ceuta to help care for the children who remain there. The amount could increase once authorities have more precise figures on the number of minors and their needs.
The government is preparing to transfer about 500 girls from Ceuta to social organizations elsewhere in mainland Spain. The move is intended to ease pressure on the city’s child protection system, which has struggled to cope with the sudden increase in the number of minors.
Rego said the changing profile of the children requires a different approach to migration and criticized Europe’s focus on border militarization and outsourcing migration controls.
The influx has placed heavy pressure on Ceuta’s shelters and social services and added to tensions among residents who say the city is struggling to cope with the situation.
Those tensions escalated Wednesday night when thousands of people joined a protest over what they described as a worsening social, economic and security situation.
Authorities said several incidents followed the demonstration. On Thursday, police arrested 12 Moroccan migrants accused of throwing stones at a vehicle carrying four soldiers during the unrest.
The government now faces pressure to relieve overcrowding in Ceuta’s child protection system while finding longer-term arrangements for the children who remain under the city’s care.
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