On 1 February 2018, the Council of Europe Lanzarote Committee published its recommendations to the Hungarian authorities on the protection of children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse in the transit zones at the Serbian-Hungarian border where they are accommodated until a decision on their asylum request is taken.

The key recommendation is that the Hungarian authorities should grant equal protection to all the asylum-seeking children, notwithstanding their age, and accommodate them in child protection institutions, rather than in the transit zones to ensure that they run less risks of being sexually exploited or abused. The Hungarian authorities are also asked to introduce alternative means of age verification, and use the “benefit of the doubt” principle, in order to avoid children being kept with adults and thus being exposed to higher risks of sexual abuse. Other recommendations include: training of professionals and voluntary workers to increase their awareness on the specific issue of the protection of these children against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse and build a relationship of trust with the asylum-seeking children. Living conditions of these children should also be improved to limit the risks of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.

First steps have already been taken by the Hungarian authorities, which the Lanzarote Committee acknowledged during its meeting on 29-31 January 2018. The information provided in this context was published together with the recommendations on the Lanzarote Committee’s dedicated webpage.

The recommendations were adopted further to a visit of a delegation of the Lanzarote Committee to the transit zones which took place in July 2017 upon invitation of the Hungarian government which resulted in a special report.