General Background Information

Greece has a long history as a major “port of arrival” into Europe for refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants. Currently the majority are fleeing armed conflict and poverty in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa and seek safety in Europe. In 2015, the situation in Greece, with a peak of 861,630 refugees, was more intensive than in any other European Union member state, and was labeled a “refuge crisis.” In line with Greece's obligations under international law, asylum seekers are permitted to remain within the country pending a decision on their case. The process is laborious. Comprehensive interviews at the Immigration Service evaluate the evidence for each claim. If approved, temporary legal status converts into permanent permission to stay and the opportunity to apply for family reunification with immediate relatives. The applicant has right of appeal in case of dismissal (MM&A 2020). In the case of URMs, appointed guardians or representatives assist them with the process (MM&A 2023c).

Large flows of asylum seekers and lengthy application procedures result in the accumulation of considerable numbers staying in Greece. During the period of waiting for the completion of the asylum procedure, those identified “vulnerable” at the entry points (those with health issues, mental health issues, or disabilities, URMs, single parents, victims of trafficking, etc.) are granted accommodation on the Greek mainland. According to the UNHCR, by June 2022 a total of 147,420 refugees and 22,117 asylum seekers were residing in Greece. Women accounted for 21 percent of this population and children for 27 percent, of whom seven out of ten were younger than twelve years old (UNHCR 2023a). Between January 2016 and 1 March 2023, 36,435 URMs were officially recorded in Greece. As of February 2023, 2,516 were registered: 84 percent boys, 16 percent girls, and 7 percent younger than fourteen years old. Countries of origin were Afghanistan (24 percent), Pakistan (14 percent), Syria (8 percent), and others (e.g., Somalia, Congo, Eritrea) (54 percent). Forty-five were separated from their family in the journey, and twelve were from Ukraine, accompanied by three caretakers (UNHCR 2023b).

Asylum seekers entering Greece intend to obtain international protection in order to have the right to travel to their destination country in Europe. Many try to hide from registration and do not choose to learn the language or access employment, so as to travel onward “under the radar.” A favorable destination is Sweden, due to its supposed educational opportunity and generous respect of the human rights of child migrants. URMs strongly want to fulfill their parents’ wishes by continuing their trip to Europe (Buchanan and Kallinikaki 2018). The strong desire of refugees to pass through Greece has been countered by increasingly strict securitization along EU member states’ borders, as discussed below. The outcomes of the actions and choices of governments, NGOs, and professionals all require ethical scrutiny with respect to the rights and best interests of each person.

Greece, since the tsunami of refugees a decade ago, faces numerous challenges as a country, including economic stagnation, high levels of unemployment and a sharp increase in poverty within the general population as well as among refugees and migrants.

Konstantios Kougias has analyzed and interpreted the societal, socioeconomic, and welfare situation of Greece at the point when the decline was increasing since 2009. He concluded that the neoliberally oriented reforms of the past decade “extended insecurity and commodification (selling public property, marketization of erstwhile publicly distributed services) and curtailed the already inefficient welfare provisions. The re-calibration of the welfare state in the new era of fiscal consolidation ignores and underestimates the need to address equity. The less privileged, the young and those in precarious employment suffer most” (Kougias 2014: 65). In these circumstances, Greece was not prepared or equipped to receive, accommodate, and legally process growing numbers of refugees.

This article does not examine the situation for displaced refugee minors from Ukraine. These mostly arrive in Greece with their families and benefit from “temporary protection status,” which provides them with residence permits, rights to work and study, and free access to the health and social care system. In the case of unaccompanied minors, the National Mechanism for the Identification and Protection of URMs activates their transfer to special emergency accommodation facilities, where after the relevant identification and guardianship procedure, adult relatives are able to undertake the care and custody of their minor relatives (MM&A 2023a).

Research Approach

In structuring the analysis, and the conclusions in this article, we applied the social quality perspective, as presented in the double themed issue of the IJSQ on the societal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic (Nijhuis and Van der Maesen 2021). We gathered information about the social quality of daily life circumstances, based on the analytical framework of the four categories of factors that codetermine the level of social quality. These are: socioeconomic security, social cohesion, social inclusion, and social empowerment. Immanent reciprocal processes between these factors and constitutional factors result in a specific level of social quality. Conditional (objective) factors refer to opportunities and resources from society that enable actors to influence relationships in order to create or adjust to a new context of self-realization (Van der Maesen and Walker 2012). The social quality analytical approach was already deployed in Greece in 2005 (Petmesidou and Polyzoidis 2005).

The empirical data in our study covers conditional factors, because these refer to the daily circumstances in which URMs have to live. Of course, these continuously interact with specific constitutional factors that are intrinsic to and characterize personal properties. In our presentation, these constitutional factors—though not explicitly listed—are immanently in play to achieve particular levels of social quality. Because the social quality approach did not constitute the framework through which the original data collection was designed and executed, a consequent (sub)division into the four conditional factors could not be imposed. Furthermore, in our discussion and conclusion regarding the findings, we work with the normative social quality criteria to judge the moral outcomes of our investigations.

The first part of our study is a discourse analysis of Greek and EU policies and cultural tendencies. This part is based on analyses and critical interpretations of policy documents, legislation, and laws. The revealed tendencies relate to studies and reports on practices the daily lives of refugees. In our interpretations and judgment of what happens in reality, we deploy the normative (moral) criteria derived from the social quality perspective.

The empirical part of our research draws upon data from visits and meetings of Shula Ramon, Professor at the University of Hertfordshire, James Cox, Lecturer at the Dundee University, and the author of this article with the staff and hosted URMs in three shelters and two SILs in northern Greece in November 2019. These were part of the comparative research project “Promoting Migrant and Refugee Social Work: A Comparative Perspective” between UK, Italy, Slovenia and Greece (Ramon and Cox 2020). The aim was to grasp differences regarding the reception, safeguarding conditions, accommodation, and school integration of URMs. An additional empirical source of data is the narratives of two young asylum seekers and six social workers who participated in a comparative qualitative research project. They were interviewed between December 2020 and March 2021. This study explored the strengths and weaknesses of the social work practice with asylum seekers in Greece and Italy, including how it has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (Kallinikaki et al. 2024 – in press).

The design of our study implies limitations to generalizability.The findings are indicative, rather than representative of the situation in Greece. The focus—directed by the available data—has been placed on formal accommodations in the northern mainland. It thus excludes the large number of URMs in other accommodations, a total of seventy shelters, seventy nine SILs and in six emergency accommodation facilities (UNHCR 2023b), and those who reside in informal accommodations, stay with relatives in the same area, or live in shelters or camps on the islands.

Frictions Due to Politics, Policies, and Cultural Tendencies

Migration policies in Greece, the EU, and its member states are on the one hand meant to protect and adequately process refugees. They are supposed to reflect an adequate understanding of the circumstances of refugees’ daily life, and therefore aim to sustain a reasonable standard of living. On the other hand, they reflect the political will of the EU states, which currently express increasing tendencies toward protectionism, nationalism, and xenophobia. Many current policies impose restrictions that make life worse for those living in the dreary circumstances of being transit refugees. As will be shown, these distinct realms create tensions and conflicts of interest.

Currently, a wide range of very unfavorable responses by EU member states to the persistent flows of migration may be noted. Security measures have increased along the borders of the EU member states. Walls, military patrols, and wire fences aim to deter refugees and migrants before they reach their countries of destination. In March 2021, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson announced the provision of 250 million Euros for funding the construction of five new gated Reception and Identification Centers ( RICs) with 3,000 places each for the new sea arrivals in equal number of Aegean islands (Fallon, 2021a) Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, contributes to the spiraling of the securitisation of the migration in EU posing survival, existential threats, and militarisation (Léonard and Kaunert 2022:1417). Clashes between border guards and refugees can be volatile. Local community groups offering support along the southeastern territorial fringes of the EU report pushbacks, exclusions, and violence (Hameršak 2021; Morales 2021).

Since July 2019 significant changes have taken place. The Greek government, dominated by the New Democratic Party, has taken a tough anti-immigrant stance, which includes strategic targets for deportations. Refugees squatting in abandoned buildings in cities have been evicted. Important services provided by national and international NGOs have shrunk, including Médecins Sans Frontières’ clinics for migrants and refugees. “ESTIA,” the big accommodation program run by UNHCR and municipalities, has been streamlined and transferred to the Ministry of Migration and Asylum.

In June 2021, Greece declared Turkey a “safe third country” for people from Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. This provided the legal ground for ruling many asylum claims “inadmissible.” Afghans fleeing the Taliban and trying to enter Greece were told that “Greece will not be their ‘gateway’ to Europe” (Fallon 2021b). This policy of August 2021 sparked an outcry from many NGOs and human rights groups and organizations (e.g., the International Rescue Committee and the Greek Council for Refugees). Border enforcement has increased and reinforced criminal “trafficking networks,” which have launched a new and highly dangerous sea route from Turkey to the shores of Italy through the Central Aegean Sea. The journey is hazardous and leads to many deaths by drowning. A worst took place on June 14 2023, when a fishing vessel with 750 people on board, sunk off in Pylos - Peloponnese and only 104 migrants rescued, besides it was spotted by the aerial vehicle of the EU border protection agency Frontex and by two ships (Niarchos, 2023).

The most recent strategies of expansion of the wall along the EU and Greek land border with Turkey and the establishment of gated RICs on three Aegean islands were confirmed by the Minister of Migration and Asylum, Notis Mitarachis, at the Delphi Economic Forum on 29 April 2023: “Europe should be the one who selects who comes, and supports the construction of fencing indirectly through paying for necessary complimentary infrastructure and technology. Greece has secured 100 million euros from [the] EU as part of the multiannual framework for such investments in the Evros region” (MM&A 2023b).

Since 1992, Greece and many EU member states have been signatories of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (ICRC). This convention stipulates children's entitlement to specific and appropriate accommodation schemes, protection and care, promotion of their best interests, nondiscrimination, family reunification, and protection from all forms of harm and exploitation. Despite EU policies to reach common standards for appropriate accommodation and care, analyses of fifty-eight accommodation settings in different EU member states reveal that their standards vary considerably. This concerns performance in several respects: separation versus integration, control versus autonomy, protection, and low-intensity versus intensive care (Lietaert et al. 2020).

Yet little has been done to optimize the initial reception of URMs, their age assessment procedures, accommodation, relocation, health services, school programs, and skills training (Barn et al. 2021). The “protection gap” concerning URM detention and reception facilities has been clearly demonstrated by Ilse Derluyn (2018). Deficiencies and unreliability within the reception system in Greece were reported in the Greek Ombudsman's report of 2018 (Synigoros 2018). Their initial accommodation in Europe does not put an end to problems for the URMs. Welcome practices are not sufficient to meet their basic needs, and sometimes even contravene their rights to protection as children (Barn et al. 2021). Serious shortcomings are found in addressing family separation, mental health and trauma, the need for a sense of belonging, facilitation of agency, and development of resilience (Kohli 2011; Chase 2013; Schumacher et al. 2019: 4).

In Greece, changes have arguably been introduced by various recent laws and policies. Law 4554/2018 on the regulatory framework for the guardianship of unaccompanied minors replaced the Guardianship by the Public Prosecutor for Minors with a Supervisory Guardianship Board. The latter keeps a Registry of Guardians, each of whom is responsible for twenty children. Since February 2020, a Special Secretariat for the Protection of URMs residing in and passing through operates under the auspices of the Ministry of Migration and Asylum. It plans, implements, and supervises relevant national policies, organizes the management of accommodations and relocation, and safeguards URMs’ protection. Law 4760/2020 ceases Protective Custody and prevents newly arrived URMs from being detained in police stations at entry points. However, URMs are still forced to stay in custody for months with unrelated adults. This is widely criticized as a contravention of child rights.

A recent ministerial decision has set the Standard Operating Procedures and Licensing Framework of the Accommodation Centers (MM&A, 2023c) putting an end to the long-lasting lack of a coherent framework for the establishment and operation of NGOs and services for URMs. This had resulted in short-term, partial targets and fragmented interventions by a wide variety of NGOs, local authorities, and civil society activist movements (Fili and Xythali 2018). Less has been done for the implementation of foster care; between 2016 and 2020, only 104 URMs were placed in foster families by the NGO METAdrasi. This reflects the absence of a coherent national family policy even after the reform of the national policy for fostering, introduced by L. 4538/2018 (Cox 2021). The creation of the first Dormitory for Homeless URMs of sixty beds in the city of Athens in April 2021, in collaboration with UNHCR and the Municipality of Athens, is one remarkable achievement (METAdrasi 2024).

Another significant change concerns the gradual abandonment of the so-called experimental model of “Humanitarian Governance Crisis.” This approach was widely applied in Greece and involved collaboration of central and regional authorities, international organizations, European institutions, NGOs, local governments, and local civil society (Papataxiarchis 2016; Kandylaki and Nagopoulos 2021). Instead, support at entry points was made the responsibility of citizens, neighborhoods, and organized solidarity in urban areas and the bigger cities.

A complicated, multiple, and changeable web of Greek and EU laws, regulations, and treaties is interfering with the living circumstances of refugees, in particular URMs. Though most of these are meant to protect children, reality makes clear that as yet, the conditional factors to sustain an acceptable level of social quality are far from being present.

The Social Quality of URMs’ Daily Living Circumstances

In the following we present our findings from site visits to shelters and SILs in northern Greece. The findings concern the social quality of the daily circumstances of URMs’ lives. Our observations are drawn from direct inspections of the quality of these accommodation facilities, and from interviews with social workers and some URMs. Our empirical observations are interspersed with theoretical considerations and discussions, derived from various relevant studies and literature. We describe our observations from the social quality perspective of objective conditional factors. These, after all, to a large extent determine the social quality of URMs’ daily lives. These conditional factors, refer to the specific qualities of socioeconomic security, social cohesion, social inclusion, and social empowerment. They are intrinsically linked to four (subjective) constitutional factors: personal security, social recognition, social responsiveness, and personal capacities (IASQ 2019: 13).

Conclusions

In and around the shelters and SILs we visited, wherever possible various activities and creative methods are employed to compensate for URMs’ insecurities and threats to their identity and well-being. These facilities and their social workers examined in our study seemed like oases for children’ resilience. They provide a window to “good practices” and perspectives on traumas, anxieties, and the potential of URMs in transit. As stated, they do not present an average picture of how URMs are accommodated and dealt with during their transit stay in Greece. However, they have been shown to emphasize the need and moral duty to recognize the appalling conditions of these children and invest in actions to relieve their situation. This regards both international and Greek legislation and policies, and the availability of practical tools to make the best of the situation. Speaking in terms of the social quality ethical criteria, this is a question of human dignity, social justice, equal value, and solidarity.

The assignment of a URM to an individual contact person who supports the minor in a personal way and looks after the retaining or reestablishing of contact with family in home land and in destination country is identified as a critical feature in assuring an acceptable standard of social quality. The deployment of child-centered, strength-based social work approaches, together with the care for peer relationships, reflect an atmosphere in which the hosted URM can feel like a child or adolescent. Well-organized and adequately staffed shelters and SILs can be considered “stations of supply” for URMs on the move. Our findings harmonize with those of Kelly Devenney (2019) on the relationships between URMs and social work professionals, with the latter reframed as “co-navigators.” Such co-navigators help the URMs plot a course through the shifting and increasingly inhospitable landscape of Greek and EU immigration regimes. Relation containment offers an experience of feeling held and protected, both in a physical and emotional sense, and has become a tool, as well as a synonym for social quality. The “stations of supply” we visited were enlightening for a better comprehension of the life of URMs. Our presentation of them is in no way intended to provide nationalistic hubris, according to which Greece will be seen as “good enough,” “justified,” or “having legitimate reasons” for its current policies and the provisions it undertakes.

From the perspective of URMs the evolving patterns of cultural, political, and policy tendencies are seriously worrisome. The status of being a refugee, and in particular a URM, is in itself a product of poignant violations and infringements of human rights in their home countries (Kallinikaki 2019: 29). We have shown that at present, in the global, EU, and Greek political and cultural contexts, tendencies are appearing that clearly express an increasing hostility regarding refugees and migrants. URMs are almost like “canaries in the mine.” Their increased vulnerability provides early fears and demonstrates needs across all refugee age groups. Current policies in the EU have created an environment in which asylum-seeking refugee families must separate at immense emotional costs, with the risk of long-term harm for children (Dubow and Kuschminder 2021). These societal tendencies absolutely contradict the globally accepted moral principle of “the best interests of the child” (Bhabha 2019; Humphris and Sigona 2019). The daily circumstances of the lives of children on the move do not benefit from these evolving policies. They will be excluded from empowering provisions and care that enhance their socioeconomic security, social inclusion, and empowerment. Although children in Greece are protected explicitly by the Greek Constitution, the UNCRC 1989 Convention, and many EU directives, recent Greek neoliberal and anti-refugee policies adversely affect the chances to pursue “the best interest of the refugee minor.” The 2009 socioeconomic crisis and the 2015/2016 “refugee crisis” have seriously undermined the Greek national child and family policy and foster care framework (Kallinikaki 2019). All this in the long run will result in detrimental impacts on URMs.

Research conducted in 2018 on social workers working with refugees in Greece revealed “a strong tendency among practitioners in the field claiming a social and political role of social work for social justice, a part attempt to have a political role, act collectively, have links with the anti-racist movement, intervene in public discourse and act as human rights defenders” (Teloni et al. 2021: 15). This conclusion refers to the politically sensitive realm in which social workers have to conduct their supportive activities for URMs. Their work needs to be morally critical and therefore by definition is “political.” We hope further research will forthcome in the field of “the social quality of living circumstances of refugees” in transit within and across European borders.

Finally, while our research does not offer a countrywide account of the treatment of URMs, it does highlight bridges and barriers to social quality. It furthermore speaks volumes about the realization of principles of human dignity, social justice, solidarity, and equal value that either impede or enhance opportunities to sustain an acceptable level of social quality. Our research evidence highlights tensions between these universally accepted moral principles on the one hand, and current policy discourses and realities of migration experiences on the other. These tensions should be a point of departure for continuing research.