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Let’s throw children suffering from infectious diseases out into the city streets – does that sound like a good idea to you?
That’s what authorities are doing to kids in Marseille, France’s second largest city, apparently unconcerned by the brutal immorality of what they’re doing, let alone the public health issues.
To understand this breakdown in human decency, let’s focus on one case, that of a teenage boy we’ll call “R.”
Born in West Africa, R. ended up in Marseille, where initially he was able to stay in emergency accommodation in February 2021. There, he waited for an all-important age assessment, that is, whether the regional authorities in the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône considered him a child or an adult.
While housed there, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis by the national tuberculosis control center. Now, tuberculosis is preventable and curable, but it can be fatal without treatment. In fact, after COVID-19, tuberculosis is the second leading infectious killer globally today.
Naturally, then, the national tuberculosis control center told the departmental authorities about R.’s diagnosis and requested he be sent to their facilities for treatment. However, despite numerous reminders to the department over several months, R. was never redirected to receive that treatment.
Instead, in April 2021, his age assessment declared him not a child, and he was turned out on the streets with no anti-tuberculosis treatment nor follow-up care.
These age assessments in France are often pivotal like this, but the decisions are super dodgy. In nearly 75 percent of cases, the assessments are overturned on appeal. Unfortunately, this review by the courts can take months, even years. In the meantime, children are ineligible for emergency accommodation – that is, they’re often forced to live homeless, on the streets.
They also can’t access services, such as education, legal assistance, the appointment of a guardian, and universal health protection.
Which brings us back to the teenage boy, R. Untreated, his tuberculosis spread to his bones and spinal cord. In November 2021, R. abruptly lost sensation in both his legs. Doctors performed an emergency arthrodesis – a joint fusion – and inserted metal plates in his vertebrae.
To this day, R. continues to experience severe physical pain, he’s lost 60 percent of his mobility, and there are movements he will never simply be able to do again. His nightmare could have been avoided had the authorities acted ten months earlier, when R. had his initial diagnosis.
The mean-spiritedness, the shamefulness, the shortsightedness of the authorities’ actions are appalling, but what’s even worse is that R.’s case is not unusual.
A new report documents how the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône, which includes Marseille, is failing to provide unaccompanied migrant children the protections they need and to which they are entitled.
They force children to sleep in the streets for days or weeks with tuberculosis, HIV, post-traumatic stress, or undetected pregnancies while they wait for their age assessment appeals – which, again, are successful in three out of four cases.
Officials should stop trying to hide behind the too-often bogus bureaucracy of age assessments. They should assume these folks are kids – because most of them are – and treat them humanely, not throw them out on the streets.
