Following legal action initiated by Equal Rights Beyond Borders, the Court accepted objections filed on behalf of five unaccompanied minors, each of whom had been detained in the Kos CCAC’s so-called “Safe Area” for several months. In all five cases, the Court ruled that the minors' stay in the “Safe Area” constituted unlawful detention and ordered their immediate transfer to appropriate accommodation facilities for unaccompanied minors.

The minors had arrived on Kos unaccompanied and were placed in the “Safe Area” pending their registration and identification, and subsequent transfer to suitable shelter on the mainland. Despite their vulnerable status, they were not permitted to exit the “Safe Area”, and their transfers were delayed for prolonged periods due to systemic failures in the accommodation and guardianship system.

These decisions further solidify the case law from the Rhodes Administrative Court, making it clear that the “Safe Area” of the Kos CCAC is not a protective environment, but rather a form of unlawful, unregulated detention. The Court rightly emphasized that children must not be deprived of their liberty outside lawful procedures, and without full consideration of their best interests. Structural deficiencies, the Court noted, cannot justify violations of fundamental rights.

These rulings reaffirm the legal principle that the detention of children must always be a measure of last resort, subject to strict safeguards and applied only for the shortest appropriate period of time. The Greek authorities – and the EU more broadly – must urgently end the use of detention-like measures against unaccompanied children and invest in sustainable, rights-based solutions.

Equal Rights Beyond Borders has been at the forefront of challenging the unlawful detention of unaccompanied minors in Greece, both before domestic courts and international bodies.

 Read more about our work on child detention:

• Accepted interim measures applications before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) here and here

• Submitted complaint to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants regarding the “Safe Areas” of the Kos and Leros CCACs here

• Report on the “Safe Areas” of the Kos and Leros CCACs here

• Cases before domestic courts (here, here and here)

Further information on how the recast of the Common European Asylum System will affect children can be found here.

***

Contact: press@equal-rights.org