Spain’s Minister for Youth and Children has defended the right of unaccompanied foreign minors to remain on Spanish territory if they so wish, after more than 70,000 people crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco.
“I think most of them want to stay in Spain and they are going to stay, of course. There is a law that protects them,” Sira Rego told the Spanish radio network Cadena SER.
Rego, a former member of the European Parliament for Izquierda Unida between 2019 and 2023, argued that Spain’s laws on minors apply equally to everyone, regardless of their origin.
“Our duty is to protect them,” Rego said.
“I can assure you that many of these children have arrived fleeing violence or extreme situations and our obligation as a society is to protect them,” she insisted.
“I am not going to give up on us doing politics…in compliance with the law and the rule of law, but also from a place of empathy. I find the trivialisation of evil we are witnessing terrible.”
Children used for political point-scoring
The central government estimates that there are currently between 2,500 and 3,000 unaccompanied minors in Ceuta.
Of these, around 1,500 arrived during the late-July mass crossing, according to police figures revised downwards, and around 500 were already in the territory before the summer influx. It is estimated that between 500 and 700 remain outside the protection system.
In a departure from the line taken by the other PSOE ministers, the main pillar of the governing coalition, Rego acknowledged that cooperation from the Moroccan authorities is usually “limited”, stating: “It is not common for us to receive a smooth response from Morocco and this is usually a problem.”
Both the prime minister and heavyweight ministers such as the interior minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, continue to insist, almost two months after the influx, that there is no evidence that Morocco played an active role in triggering the mass crossing.