RIGHTS-EU: Immigrants Use Children as Pawns in Bid for Residency

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Sep 25 1999 (IPS) - African children are being abandoned in the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves at the northern tip of Morocco, by parents aiming to take advantage of a legal loophole to gain residency in the European Union (EU).

Four-year-old Bieye Mbaki, from the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), has been held in a centre for protection of minors in Ceuta since he was found wandering the streets of the city Monday, all alone and with a small card hanging around his neck, providing his name and his father’s cell-phone number.

Bieye is the third abandoned child picked up by Spanish authorities in Ceuta in less than a month. The first two have been reunited with their parents, who slipped by police controls and entered the enclave without visas.

Spanish legislation protects children, and does not allow the deportation of minors, or their parents. Spain is thus forced to extend residency permits to the family. And once they have obtained legal residency in Spain, immigrants have the right to live in any of the 15 EU member countries.

The not yet completed barrier separating Morocco from the city of Ceuta, on the Mediterranean coast near the Strait of Gibraltar, will cost the Spanish government more than 50 million dollars.

The barrier consists of four parallel wire fences, with a road running between the two in the middle, sensor wires, barbed wire, and 17 watch towers equipped with heat-sensitive cameras, air conditioning, telephones, computers and floodlights.

Besides its own laws, agreements with the EU assign Spain the role of watchman over the extreme western tip of the bloc’s southern border, along the Strait of Gibraltar and in surrounding areas.

The Spanish parliament is in the process of modifying existing laws, in order to recognise the labour rights of immigrants. The changes are unlikely to open the doors to an increased number of immigrants, however.

Poverty and lack of opportunities push many people from the countries of sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb in North Africa into the attempt to enter Europe.

The biggest risk takers are the young, “who take upon themselves the responsibility of helping their families,” said Abdel Ahmed Beyuki, president of the Association of Immigrant Moroccan Workers in Spain (ATIME).

Between 20 and 25 undocumented immigrants make it into Ceuta every day, according to police. Others enter the city of Melilla, east of Ceuta, while yet others set out on the risky journey across the Mediterranean sea on small flimsy fishing boats known as “pateras”.

Those who fail to make it into Spanish territory and are picked up at sea are immediately sent back to the place from which they set out. But immigrants intercepted after setting foot in Spain, even on a deserted beach, are held in police custody in “reception centres” until the paperwork for their deportation has been completed.

Some 1,050 citizens of countries of sub-Saharan Africa and 90 Algerians are currently being held in reception centres in Ceuta.

But employers say the immigrants are deported with no further thought to the need for labour power. Farmers particularly complain of the difficulty of finding migrant workers around harvesttime.

In a letter to the Madrid daily ‘El País’, the owner of a local construction company, Miguel de la Red, told of the difficulties he ran up against in his attempt to hire a Moroccan national, Mustapha, who already had a work permit.

The problem was that Mustapha’s permit only allowed him to work as a domestic, and the Labour Ministry told De la Red he could not hire Mustapha as a construction worker without first applying for a modification of his work permit.

In a Labour Ministry office, the businessman came across “the unpleasant spectacle” of around 300 foreign nationals waiting in line since 3:00 AM, while Spanish nationals slipped ahead of them to be attended first.

Meanwhile, the procedure for changing one permit for another entailed the purchase of an application form, which De la Red filled out, only to be informed that he would be allowed to hire Mustapha “in a few months” – perhaps seven or eight.

“I am ashamed of the way my country treats those who come seeking jobs, just as my grandparents did when they went to Germany or the Americas,” said De la Red, who pointed out that immigrants “only take jobs that the Spanish don’t want, such as work in the fields or in construction.”

The new bill being debated by parliament to replace an existing 1985 law will recognise labour rights of which immigrants are currently deprived.

The draft law, to which IPS had access, will recognise foreign workers’ rights to join trade unions and obtain social benefits such as health coverage, social security and unemployment insurance.

But residency permits will remain contingent upon work permits, which are only extended if immigrants first present a work contract or a future employer’s pledge to hire them.