II. Children, Women and Men

II.I. The Three Camps – Selection Process

After having arrived on Lesbos and being registered in camp Moria, the refugees are sent to multiple locations scattered all over the island. Yet there are a two main camps, Kara Tepe and Moria, and it here where the majority of them goes. BRF works in both camps and also in a hotel, which is called the 'Silver Bay' or 'Caritas' hotel (named ‘Caritas’ because the NGO Caritas rented and took care of the place).

The place where you go as a refugee is officially determined by the following question: “Are you a vulnerable case?”.

This is so when you are (part of) a family, a pregnant mother or single woman, when you're underage, or when you're having a physical disability (e.g. blindness or being in a wheelchair).

Yet and regardless, it often actually boils down to the following question: “Are you a single man?”

If so, Moria will seal your fate for the coming months.

If not, chances are high you’ll go to Kara Tepe (or some other place on the island).

Circumstances and the quality of life differ greatly between the two camps. Where Kara Tepe is relatively speaking ‘acceptable’, Moria is a sort of prison hell. And the Silver Bay / Caritas Hotel is comparatively speaking a resort, although this must obviously be taken as a relative comment - as being a refugee on Lesbos is certainly no high-end holiday.

The next section will shed light on the situation of the three different groups on the island: children, women and men. Each group has its own individual circumstances and challenges while being in the camps on Lesbos.

The refugee population in Greece consists of 30.3% children, 17.7% women and 52% men (March 2017, source: UNHCR).

II.II. Being a Child Refugee

An important factor defining your quality of life as a refugee on Lesbos is age. If you’re a minor and under 18, chances are you’re relatively ‘ok’. For it’s highly unlikely you’ll go to Moria and more probable that it'll be Kara Tepe or Caritas - where there are some facilities and organizations that will try to make the best out of the situation (although at the moment of writing the rumour goes that families will being reintroduced in Moria).

It goes without saying that being a refugee kid is far from optimal – as these children often have gone through a lot of hardship and still have to live in one of the camps as a refugee. But if anything, things are arranged relatively and generally speaking ‘the best’ for you when you are a refugee minor coming to Lesbos - if you are with your parents that is.

--- Refugee children on Lesbos (photo: Foreign and Commonwealth Office)
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/foreignoffice/9660904043)

Activities

A lot of activities are organized for children by many NGOs, as they try to facilitate a life for the children that is relatively ‘childlike’. Naturally this is an important focus of the aid work being done, as the childhood years are formative for one’s psychological and behavioral development (as for example with attachment-style, emotional and cognitive skills, coping styles, self-image and self-esteem issues). So the fact that there is a lot of attention for the children is absolutely necessary and rightfully given its high regard. Yet nothing is perfect.

A list of BRF's activities will be presented in the chapter of "Shifts BRF".

--- Kids activities in Kara Tepe (photo: Henk van Lambalgen Photography)

Challenges

Lack of schooling

There is hardly any education system in place, except for some English and Greek classes during the week. This creates a situation where the children are increasingly lagging behind their age-group, which creates problems when they will finally arrive in a new country. For how are they going to catch up with their peers and deal with their lack of experience in school-structure. And this while being marked by traumatic experiences? Are they going to be ‘difficult cases’? What if they consequently drop out? Who is going to give them (job) opportunities then? What if they end up in a society that has to offer them nothing but some meager welfare or pothole job while being treated as a second-rate citizen deprived of any long-term perspective? What will become of them then?

Lack of structure

Life in the camps is preordained to be filled with unpredictability and change. There's little permanency, structure and stability in the children’s lives that enables them to settle down within themselves. (International) laws, regulations, fellow refugees and the all-over situation changes constantly. Also the volunteers, who are basically functioning as ‘out of home educators’, change every two or three weeks and thus it’s difficult (if not impossible) for volunteers to stand as that point of stability and structure in such a limited period of time. The lack of structure and consistency can lead to psychological and behavioral problems, as with for example delinquency, bullying, fighting, disrespecting teachers, having temper tantrums, stress and anxiety related problems, symptoms of ADD/ADHD etc. I have seen a lot of these problems play out while working with the refugee children on Lesbos.

Children being ‘spoiled’ and ‘treated with fur gloves’

So many organizations try to accommodate the children that they sometimes overload them with activities (as for example with no less than six movie nights a week). This can have the effect that these children have an element of being spoiled. Another issue in this regard is that many volunteers try to be ‘nice’ to them as they are seen as ‘poor little victims’. Reluctant to set boundaries they forget to teach the kids structure and the law of consequence, teaching that certain behavior is not tolerated. So what you see is volunteers giving in to fussy whims and negative attention-seeking (e.g. crying, shouting, begging, obstinate behaviour) - which, in fact, teaches the children that asking through the negative route works, as it is apparently an effective technique for getting what you want. This has sometimes created situations where children become unmanageable if you do not give them what they want.

That being said, it’s not always easy working with these kids. They can be very demanding and disruptive, messing up your whole activity or class. So it can tempting to give in to just get rid of the problem; for one thing leads to another and before you know it you are in the midst of chaos, losing all control and with kids ending up in fights or dancing on the table.

A difficult issue within being directive with the refugee children is that it is often hard to teach them the 'law of consequence' (where you teach that undesired behavior has certain consequences) for real.

For what are you gonna do really?

You can remove a kid from the activity. But this can turn into an outburst of violence towards anyone and anything near. And moreover, it often actually doesn’t really care being removed and it just goes somewhere else to cause trouble and act out. You could bring it to its parents with your story, but it does happen that they think you are the one who has to solve the problem (for you are the one responsible for teaching the kid the law of consequence outside of home); alternatively the parents can give the kid a beating or harsh reprimand - which not actually improves a child’s healthy development if you ask me (as it for example learns that aggression/abuse is a way to deal with problems).

Another thing you can do is temporarily banning a child from an activity, but then it is actually the question if you are really having a positive and/or lasting effect, as it just moves around the camp continuing its behavior without any restriction or guidance. So keeping the child close to you might actually be more important than banning it as it most of all needs the structure and guidance you can give it - for it might very well be acting out because it doesn't get the structure and guidance it needs. Difficult children and to how to deal with them effectively is often a dilemma.

The lack of professionals

You just want to give these kids the best you can because, yes, they are victims of the situation and they do need safety and solace. But what they actually need is a lot of personal attention and guidance from experienced professionals like teachers and developmental psychologists. But alas - the money, people and resources are not available so you just have to roll with it the best you can; putting fresh volunteers in front of classes and activities with kids who have often seen too much shit in life. So you just keep your fingers crossed, hoping for the best and that it won’t be too chaotic and disruptive this shift.

--- ‘A situation’ developing during English class

Family structure

Obviously being a refugee family brings a lot of stress due to the all-pervasive uncertainty and living in a foreign, uprooted and constantly changing environment – topped by a traumatic past. Also being unable to do anything to improve the situation for yourself and your family provokes a disempowered and frustrated mindset. And this situation often drags on for many long months.

This stressful situation echoes within the family atmosphere, pressuring family harmony - potentially leading up to all kinds of family issues like marital fights and arguments, domestic violence, alcohol abuse, breakdowns, depression, defeatism and many other problems that increase the 'separation' within the family instead of bringing it together (which is what is actually needed). Also, parents under stress and mental/emotional problems are often not able to take good care of the child and actually aggravate the child’s own mental/developmental problems. A child is a victim of a problematic home environment, which it consequently acts out on its own environment.

Unaccompanied children

If for whatever reason a minor isn’t accompanied by parents or caretakers it is either sent to Kara Tepe or, when it’s young (say younger than fourteen years old), to one of the children’s shelters. Obviously such a situation is very distressing for a child as it lives in complete insecurity without a point of safety and care from a parent. It's basically being handed over to complete strangers while having no clear vision of what is going to happen while stepping into an unstable environment. Whatever happens in those shelters and out of sight is not always clear, but there have been reports that show that some serious shit is going on over there. There are many cases of children being on drugs and there are reported cases of children being abused physically and sexually. Also there are suspicions of children being prostituted.

It is common sense that a large share of these children will develop serious psychological and behavioral problems.

There are 10 shelters on the island and approximately 2000 unaccompanied children in the whole of Greece (March 2017, source: UNHCR)

Problematic cases

While most of the children are relatively 'fine' (meaning: not too disruptive) there are also cases that are much more problematic: children totally out of control and who are so psychologically damaged that there it is very hard to deal with them in a ‘normal’ way. Often these children have faced intensely traumatic events, and sometimes are still going through a lot by being in the refugee camps.

With these heavy cases it often also the case that the parents are also traumatized and/or experiencing psychological problems. Children need safety, care and support - forming attachment bonds with someone who they can trust and who answers to their needs. But the parent(s) might not be able to take good care of their children due to their own mental condition, which compounds to the child’s problematic functioning.

So what happens is that children with family and attachment problems seek that safety, care and support with you as a volunteer as a surrogate for the parents. So these children look for that what they lack, desire and need in a healthy the parent-child relationship. This shows through the child seeking a disproportionate amount intimacy form the volunteer (for example with hugging and being affectionate) - often immediately from the moment you step through the door.

It can be hard to do, but you have to take a step back and put boundaries to this kind of behavior. For filling up that gap of affection and intimacy will create problems you do not want, like creating a relationship of dependency with the child that you cannot sustain (in turn damaging the child’s trust within relationships etc.), taking away the parents’ responsibility of raising their own child, and creating a situation of favoritism between the other kids. You should definitely be emphatic and warm towards the children, but ultimately you have to keep it ‘professional’ and keep a certain distance. Which is not always easy.

On the ‘heavier’ side of children acting out what they lack in the parent-child relationship are the children who are disorderly and oppositional. Children like this can start conflict over nothing, get very aggressive, have no patience, are self-centered and create a lot of drama through crying, shouting and becoming uncontrollable. This contrasts with the times where they are on the other end and overly sweet and clingy. The point of concern is the unpredictability, extremity and polarization of their inner state (and thus behaviour). Often these children are difficult to handle and are generally not liked by the other children.

--- A child in Kara Tepe being calmed by wearing a specific jacket (photo: Henk van Lambalgen Photography)

Children with attachment and behavioral problems need professional help, and so does the family. Unfortunately this is not always the case. In Kara Tepe there is a service for children who are ‘problematic cases’, although this service seems to be defective in some points. For we have had an intensely problematic which this service apparently didn’t find ‘problematic enough’. Honestly, I have never seen such a case and neither had others of BRF: this child was dealing with a home situation that was about as bad as they come, and the child was behaving in a way that was uncontrollable, disorderly, dramatic and aggressive.

This child, A., coming from Syria, is with her father and his ‘new woman’. This new woman doesn’t like A. and neither does her father. Both tell her that they don’t want her and that they prefer the other woman’s children over her. Further she is emotionally neglected and there are signs of her being physically abused (for example marks and bruises on her arms). These kind of situations impact a child deeply and creates an attachment style and inner organization that is completely messed up. If you tell me this child is not an urgent case then I don’t know what is.

Summarizing

The situation for children varies widely over the different places where they are 'stored'. It can range from relatively good to very bad, depending on the facilities, activities and general living conditions of the place.

Caritas is good for children in terms of safety and facilities, yet children and their families shouldn’t stay there for too long due to lack of education and professional help.

Kara Tepe is sort of ok for children, although I say this with a bittersweet sensation in the mouth. For:

• The children get a lot (too much?) of (superficial) distraction with all the activities organized by all the NGOs.
• Further they get some (but insufficient) teaching.
• They are watched and guided by many volunteers (but the turnover/change is high and often aren't skilled professionals).
• There is an emergency point for children in trouble and need (but only for acute cases while it doesn’t deal with structural family issues).
• There is some possibility for individual guidance for ‘problematic cases’ (but they are regularly inadequately diagnosed as such and the specific help they get should be optimized).
• Some structure is provided (but there is no structural structure).
• Everyone wants the best for the children (which can nevertheless can impact setting boundaries and learning the child consequences of its behavior).
• There is some camp supervision (but it's absolutely not clear of what the children are doing when they are out of sight)
• There is discouragement of abuse among children (yet discrimination and name-calling happens all the time (in Arabic, Farsi, …) and fights happen regularly).

--- A Syrian Family (Photo: Russell Watkins/DFID)
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/dfid/32564901261)

So there is a lot to improve still, and the focus should shift more from entertaining the kids to structurally teaching them life-skills and basic education. Furthermore it is preferable that more long-term volunteers are employed who can function as a point of stability, and also the employment of more specialists in working with (difficult/traumatized) children and family matters is highly desirable. For the families specifically, there should be workshops and weekly discussion meetings about parenting and how to deal with stress and other issues that impact family life being refugees. Major problem is though, as always, to find the stable manpower to do this work structurally (and to set up projects focused on long-term support and development). Further there should be an in-depth investigation of the situation of children in the shelters.

Note: when I arrived at Lesbos there used to be a family section in camp Moria in a perimeter separated from the rest of the camp. After a couple of weeks of me being there it was decided that families, women and children shouldn’t be in Moria - and so were sent elsewhere (which was in my opinion a very correct decision). Now however, there are rumors of families being reintroduced to Moria. This is ‘no good my friend’ as it is definitely not a place for children and neither for women. They will be caught in an environment of repression while being surrounded by men with a lot of frustrations, anger and psychological issues - topped off with some widespread substance abuse.

Moreover, the family compound is just as bleak and cheerless as the rest of the camp. Bringing children to Moria will have definitely have a negative influence on many levels, as for with example their relation to authority, their stress levels and their sense of security while there is a total lack of education, and basically of anything that makes a healthy child environment.