Unaccompanied minors from abroad in a Hungarian children's home - follow-up inquiry of the Ombudsman

Unaccompanied minors from abroad in a Hungarian children's home – follow-up inquiry of the Ombudsman

Asylum seekers who are minors are now placed in the children's centre of Fót instead of a refugee camp. This is one of the results of the previous proposals of Ombudsman Máté Szabó. The new inquiry of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights, however, uncovered further problems.

Before the Ombudsman acted in the matter, unaccompanied minors seeking asylum had been placed in the accommodation centre of Bicske, where the conditions were not really adequate for providing education and getting to know the country. Following the initiative of the Commissioner, the Minister for social and labour affairs and the Minister for public administration and justice set up, by amending the relevant Act, the home of unaccompanied minors in Károlyi István Children's Centre in Fót. The life circumstances of alien minors in respect of whom asylum proceedings are pending, who are recognised as refugees or who are in aftercare, are considerably better than they were in Bicske; this has also been confirmed by young persons who have been living there for a longer period of time.

The new inquiry of the Ombudsman has also highlighted some problems. Among others, the report mentions the fact that in the centre there is no isolation ward where newly arriving youths suffering from infectious diseases or from parasites could be treated and cared for. This presents a danger to the right to physical and mental health, as laid down in the Fundamental Law.

Both the teachers of the school providing education for these alien children and the staff of the centre have reported that almost all minors have been gravely affected by the shocks suffered during their journey to Hungary. In psychology one says that they are suffering from ‘posttraumatic stress disorder', which may result in a sudden loss of weight without any apparent cause, in chronic headaches or unexpected and uncontrollable outbursts of anger. The psychologists and the pedagogical support staff working in the children's centre are unable to properly attend to these problems since their time and energy is taken up by caring for the inmates of the special children's home also situated in Fót. 

The inquiry of the Ombudsman has revealed the fact that not only the youths living there but also the staff caring for them are in need of professional support. Indeed, after some time children open up and begin developing confidence in and emotional ties towards the grown-ups caring for them; consequently they tell them about all the horrible things they went through and this is very taxing even for the teachers and educators, who, left to themselves, are unable to cope with this emotional burden.