How is the Dublin III process failing children with family in the UK? 3 HOW IT SHOULD WORK An unaccompanied child claims asylum in France, and is asked at the first interview whether s/he has family elsewhere in Europe with whom s/he would like to be reunited under Dublin III France is obliged, under its own domestic legislation, to provide child protection until the transfer can be made (e.g. in a children’s home or foster care) Préfecture (capital of the department, rough equivalent of a county) issues a ‘take charge request’ to the Home Office of the UK, presenting evidence of the family link between the child and his/her relative (within 3 months maximum) The Home Office responds, either accepting the request to ‘take charge’ of the child’s asylum claim, or rejecting it on grounds of insufficient evidence to prove the family link (within 2 months maximum) If the request is accepted: France works with the UK to arrange the child’s transfer to the UK, where s/he is reunited with family and supported to claim asylum in the UK (within 6 months maximum) How children are being let down Until March 2016, not a single child had been transferred from Calais to the UK under Dublin III. Voluntary groups had been working since September 2015 to help children access their legal rights. Following breakthroughs in early 2016, Safe Passage UK and other voluntary organisations have been able to successfully support unaccompanied children to access Dublin III, and 72 children had been transferred to the UK using the full procedure at the time of writing. However, the process has weaknesses and failings at almost every point, as this report will show. 2 Safe Passage UK; Legal Shelter 3 http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/asylum/examination-of-applicants/docs/evaluation_of_the_ implementation_of_the_dublin_iii_regulation_en.pdf No place for children 5