ΑΛΛΗΛΕΓΓΥΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ: ΕΞΕΛΙΞΕΙΣ ΣΤΟ ΠΕΔΙΟ ΤΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΦΥΓΙΚΗΣ ΠΡΟΣΤΑΣΙΑΣ ΚΑΙ ΠΡΟΚΛΗΣΕΙΣ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΕ ΚΑΙ ΣΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ

218 Unaccompanied minors and the dangers from the administrative practice The absence of a guardian raises extremely serious and wide-ranging problems to the minors, such as the treatment of them by the authorities as adults, their de- preciation, non-defense and promotion of their rights and the total deprivation of the procedural guarantees. Such procedural guarantees are provided for by the law, including their representation and information 20 during all the phases of the asylum procedure, including the phase of the age determination and assessment, the interview, the service of the decisions, and especially the rejections, the filing of appeals, which minors almost always submit on their own, by signing just the form of the Asylum Service, without being able to understand the legal terminol- ogy, their significance and their consequences, and raise specific grounds of ap- peal, since they are not informed of the exact content of the decision itself and cannot even appear before the Appeal Committees in order to expose the reasons for their persecution. Even if an unaccompanied minor is considered as such in the asylum procedure, once again the procedural safeguards imposing the best interests of the child are not applied and consequently they are considered as adults, i.e. without guardian- ship, without legal assistance, often having been kept for a long time, without oral hearing in second instance. Furthermore, what it has been observed is that Prosecutors, due to the large number of children give custody to strangers who appear as relatives of minors or traffickers It is true that, lately, second instance decisions grant humanitarian status to mi- nors. However, when a minor is deprived of her/his basic procedural guarantees during the asylum procedure, it is a failure again of the administration to provide protection and an effective and fair asylum procedure. *** Unaccompanied children lack their family, adequate protection, necessary care and guidance. It’s high time that Greek authorities take responsibility for properly providing them the protection and care every child needs, in compliance with the best interest of the child, the principles and the procedural safeguards according to law and let children be children . 20. e.g. child-friendly information material, regarding the children’ s rights, the guardian- ship arrangements, the available services that could provide assistance to them, the right to lodge a complaint free legal assistance.