Court name: Committee on the Rights of the Child
State: Spain
Date of decision:

Eight children of Moroccan nationality born and raised in Melilla, a Spanish enclave city in Morocco, to migrant parents, who had irregular administrative status submitted four different communications to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Even though the children had the right to attend public school by law, they were unable to access public education in Melilla in practice, because they were requested to provide documents that were difficult or impossible to obtain given their irregular administrative status. The Committee on the Rights of the Child found that Spain had violated the applicants’ right to non-discrimination and to education under Article 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, read in conjunction with Article 28, and Article 6 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure.

Court name: Committee on the Rights of the Child
State: Finland
Date of decision:
Key aspects: Protection

This communication to the Committee on the Rights of the Child was submitted by nationals of Finland on behalf of the applicants’ own child relatives and on behalf of 33 other children who are held in the Hawl camp in the north-east of Syria. The children's parents are allegedly associated with the Islamic State. The applicants claim that Finland’s refusal to assist or repatriate these children despite knowing they were at risk of irreparable harm violates Articles 2, 6, 19, 20, 24, 27, 28, 37, 39, and 40 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as Article 7 of the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The Committee finds the communication filed on behalf of the applicants’ own child relatives admissible and that Finland violated Articles 6(1) and 37 (a) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Court name: Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Date of decision:

The communication concerned M.K.A.H., a stateless child, and whether Switzerland violated his rights under Articles 2 (2), 6, 7, 16, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 37 and 39 UNCRC when it decided to return him and his mother to Bulgaria, pursuant to the agreement between Switzerland and Bulgaria relating to the readmission of migrants in irregular situations, where they had previously obtained subsidiary protection.

Some of the findings of the Committee were that (i) Switzerland had not respected the best interests of the child nor heard him at the time of hearing the asylum request; (ii) the child ran a real risk of being subject to inhuman and degrading treatment in case of a return to Bulgaria; (iii) Switzerland had not sought to take the necessary measures to verify whether the child would be able to acquire a nationality in Bulgaria. The Committee also found that Article 7 UNCRC implicates that States must take the necessary positive actions to implement the right to acquire a nationality.