Home Affairs Committee Select Committees

Can have come everybody to this afternoon's session on the situation

for unaccompanied can have come everybody to this afternoon's

session on the situation for unaccompanied in Europe and the

Governmentthank you very much for coming to give evidence for us this

afternoon to close the Dubs scheme. Thank you very much for coming to

give evidence for us this can I ask you to just start by each

introducing yourselves and also moment for the position for what

assessment of the organisations is your assessment

at the moment for the position for you think's decision to close the

Dubs scheme and also in France the ending of the fast-track Dublin

scheme as well. I'm the deputy executive director for Unicef UK. I

have colleagues working in Greece, Italy, across Europe and on the

ground of course in the region who are currently meeting the

humanitarian needs of many unaccompanied children. When the

Dubs scheme was announced it was clearly about targeting the most

vulnerable children and we thought that was absolutely the right thing

to do. We were, as you would imagine at Unicef, targeting the most

vulnerable unaccompanied children, many of whom have been trafficked,

exploited and abused and are in great need of protection, and you

will have heard all of their horrifying stories about these

children when there is not a route going missing and sometimes falling

into the hands of traffickers, smugglers or others who would

exploit them. We did see what a scheme like this can achieve when an

expedited process began in Calais and we were heightened by the speed

with which that finally happened after much delay. It makes very

little sense to us that this scheme would be cancelled now when we know

there are still 2500 unaccompanied children in Greece, ten times as

many in Italy and many others across Europe, and many of those are

outside of the formal system. We know there is a formal system in

Italy and Greece but it is overwhelmed, it cannot protect the

children they currently have there and we think the UK has a very

important role to play in assisting those other Government in making the

scheme work. Subtitles will resume

on 'The Week In Parliament' at 2300.