Another day in paradise
By : Celia Barnes
There was live African music, exotic foods, and mural painting for kids when Poland celebrated International Refugee Day on Sunday, June 24, in the Agrykola park by Ujazdowski Castle.
Organized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and Polish Humanitarian Action, this year's theme focused on refugee children. Many of Poland's refugee children and adults, who are waiting to be granted asylum by the government, attended the festival along with an estimated 15,000 Poles.
But behind the event's cheery atmosphere of face painting and balloon blowing, hides what is a serious issue for the government, which 10 years ago when it signed the Geneva Convention agreed to follow the UN's humanitarian code on refugees.
A report soon to be published by the Warsaw branch office of UNHCR which among its other duties, monitors the implementation of the Geneva Convention will recommend that Poland is not a safe place for refugee children to be resettled.
"There are not enough legal instruments to protect the rights of children here," said UNHCR External Relations Officer Agnieszka Siarkiewicz.
She cites one case last year when 16 children mainly Chechens and Afghanistanis, aged 10-17 years old were returned from Germany to Poland after fleeing their war-torn nations. Instead of being sent to one of Poland's numerous refugee centers, they were locked in a Warsaw emergency care center for juvenile delinquents, "although they had done nothing wrong," Siarkiewicz said. "They had no access to their own language, no access to any legal help, no professional care."
The children all subsequently escaped and have not been seen or heard from since.
In 2000, the UNHCR recorded that 4,589 people applied for refugee status in Poland. Siarkiewicz estimates that 60-70 of them were children. Of the adults, 78 of them were granted asylum. As many as three children were successful in their applications.
As for the plight of the refugee children who are still in limbo, "they either go to Western Europe or around somewhere; we don't know what happens to them," she said.
In the lead up to Poland's accession to the European Union, the government has been obliged to improve its refugee handling procedures, and on July 1, amendments to the Law on Foreigners will come into force. The changes will speed up the process of granting asylum which typically takes two to three years, instead of the UN's recommended limit of three months. And a new central office will also be created to assist in this task.
While Siarkiewicz is quick to say that Poland has achieved a lot in the past 10 years, she says there is still room for improvement. It is not uncommon for child refugees, who have been granted asylum in Poland, to still slip through the social nets and disappear either within Poland, or for points further west.
"If you are a child and you have no bread and you are hungry and in Poland, and you have no chance to get bread, of course you will leave ... otherwise you will die.
"People don't leave Afghanistan to die in Poland."
