09-02-2012
Last year, almost 108 migrants from abroad handed in application about their recognition as refugees with granting official status in Transcarpathia, and 77 such persons were in Temporary Accommodation Centre (TAC) in Mukachevo.
Children seeking asylum without accompaniment of adults are part of them. Generally, the number of these children reaches60 in Ukraine. Getting to the country without official permission they became practically unprotected. The biggest problem is age determination of these children. It is often difficult to determine if they reached full age or not when they are teenagers. It depends namely on this, the government can return them to the country of origin, they have a right to stay in Ukraine.
According to the words of Regional representative of UNHCR Oldrih Andrisek, these children do not have Ukrainian document, but they have the same problems and aspiration as Ukrainian peers do. He marked that everything possible is done in Transcarpathia to support the needs of refugee children.
The residents of the country treat refugee migrants hospitably, children get all necessary help. Simultaneously, these children strive for learning Ukrainian language, they want to be useful to our society. It was reported by the President’s ombudsman for children Yurii Pavlenko, who positively evaluated the Plan of Action of Transcarpathian Regional State Administration on Children’s Rights Protection – asylum seeker.
– More often I used to hear a question from young migrants: can anybody issue a document, which will permit us to stay in Ukraine, – Yurii Pavlenko marked. – Unfortunately, there is still no clearly detefined document that would regulate the rights of these children and would determine the procedure of permission granting on residence in Ukraine and future rights for education, residence, labour, etc.
Thus, it is a quite urgent problem – regulation of inter-agency discrepancies concerning the stay of children seeking asylum on the territory of our country. The officials are working upon its solution.