Warsaw, December 13—Frontex has completed its first joint operation devoted to the irregular immigration of children into the European Union. Joint Operation Agelaus 2010 was a one-month fact-finding exercise conducted at 42 airports across Europe, at 14 of which guest 30 guest officers were deployed from 17 Member States.
Joint Operation Agelaus 2010 was conducted between November 10 and December 7, under the auspices of Pulsar programme. Its key objective was to increase awareness of the phenomenon of irregular migration involving children, in order for Member States to address the issues of people smuggling and trafficking in human beings (THB) at the EU external air borders with regard to under-18s. A longer-term aim was to develop pro-active policies and procedures to deal with irregular/illegal migration involving children arriving at EU airports and to provide the basis for a more flexible approach to tackling the facilitators and organised crime groups involved.
For reasons of child welfare, the emphasis throughout the operation was on crime prevention rather than investigation of criminals, by ensuring that vulnerable children at risk of being trafficked into the EU were identified at the earliest possible juncture and appropriate steps taken. Other aims were to collect data for ongoing analysis by the Frontex Risk Analysis Unit into such factors as nationalities most at risk, most common modi operandi used, routes travelled and prices paid to facilitation networks.
As a result of Agelaus 2010, a total of 175 cases of under-18s immigrating irregularly into the EU were detected (90 boys and 85 girls) — of which 143 were accompanied by adults and 32 were unaccompanied — and entry was refused to 161 children (131 accompanied, 30 unaccompanied). A total of 76minorsapplied for asylum either immediately or after being refused entry.
In addition, two adults were charged by Dutch authorities with attempting to smuggle a seven-month-old child into the Netherlands through Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport.
The top three (claimed) nationalities of asylum applicants were Afghani (23), Turkish (17), Iranian (5) and Iraqi (5). The top five airports for detections were Madrid (70), Frankfurt (36), Amsterdam (24), Rome Fiumicino (20) and Brussels (11).
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) acted as observers at three airports, for one week each, and advised the project team during the planning and preparation phases.
The Member States whose officers participated in Agelaus 2010 were Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Norway, Romania, Slovenia and Spain.