Migrant kids spend less than 10 days in Hungary

8600 children – mainly Afghan, Syrian, and Kosovan – arrived to Hungary in 2015 unaccompanied; it’s ten times more than in the previous years, writes index.hu.

Most of the children are 15 – 18 year old boys, who have no intention of staying in Hungary, but to travel to Western European countries. Only 21 of them received any kind of national protection (either refugee, or protective status, and may stay in the country for a longer period of time).

The government has established a 370 million HUF fund for helping the children who came to Hungary without their parents or a guardian accompanying them; but it seems unnecessary, as children only spend about six to eight days in the children’s home that is maintained for them.

Most of the migrant children are above the age of 14, and are usually boys, but more and more 12-14 year old children are coming to Hungary with teenagers, said Júlia Iván, legal expert of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, which also provides legal services for migrant children.

Károly Czibere, EMMI’s (Ministry of Human Capacities) Minister of State for Social Affairs and Inclusion also told MTI on the 1st of October that this trend seems to be changing; the migrating children are younger, and more girls are coming to Hungary.

Those people who are under the age of 18, cross the border illegally, and have no legal guardians, are unidentified as children, and have more rights than adult immigrants. The asylum procedure supposed to be faster in their case (in theory), they have the right to go to school, live in a children’s home where they receive meals five times a week, and a legal guardian is appointed for them.  Therefore these children (21 out of the 8600 in 2015), have the same rights as those Hungarian children who were took into care by the government.