Harvard study blasts U.S. treatment of child refugees

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=873542006

BOSTON (Reuters) - Unaccompanied children fleeing to the United States to escape persecution often meet a harsh, hostile reception, slipping through the cracks of a system designed for adults that compounds their trauma, a Harvard University study said on Tuesday.

About 8,000 children sought sanctuary in the United States alone -- arriving with no family or adult guardian -- in 2003, the most recent year studied. Many had no legal counsel and were vulnerable to exploitation, according to a report on the findings.

The 218-page report said the children faced risks that included military recruitment, sexual violence, exploitativework and physical abuse.

The two-year study of U.S. immigration laws and agencies said courtrooms often treat unaccompanied child migrants like adults, or simply assume they arrived with family.

"There is a void in the immigration law because the law was based on a faulty assumption," Jacqueline Bhabha, a lecturer at Harvard Law School and co-author of the report, told Reuters. "A lot of children are not attached when they arrive."

"Far from attracting a compassionate response, children frequently attract the opposite -- a punitive, harsh, even vindictive attitude. Children often... are treated worse than adults, not better."

care for its own children.