SAMU Foundation shelters 2,000 migrant children: the cost dividing Spain

SAMU Foundation shelters 2,000 unaccompanied migrant children: the cost that reopens the controversy

What does it really cost to care for an unaccompanied migrant minor? The SAMU Foundation, which shelters more than 2,000 children and young people who arrived in Spain without an adult relative, argues that the term "mena" is an administrative acronym that professionals in the sector do not use. But the figure of €4,700 per month attributed to each minor, antiestéticatured on a poster that appeared in Madrid, has once again put the spotlight on a system in which 82% of child protection centers are run by private entities.

The business network behind child protection

According to lawyer José Antonio Bosch, trinc Spain's 2000 child protection law, the privatization of centers was allowed and a "business network" emerged around the minors, a model that turns children into commodities. Spain has 1,104 child protection centers, and writer Lucía Etxebarria has pointed out that an unaccompanied minor costs the same as a Spanish one: €4,700 per month. If an estimate of €6,000 is applied to SAMU's 2,000 minors, the bill amounts to €12 million per month, €144 million per year.

Emergency system or bottomless pit?

Some argue that the State's child protection system was designed as an emergency mechanism for the country's own minors, not to indefinitely care for all the world's children. Against this, the SAMU Foundation itself points out that half of those in its care are in Ceuta, in safe though initially precarious conditions, and that among them are some 80 girls in situations of particular vulnerability.

With these numbers on the table, the uncomfortable question remains: how much of that bill ends up in private management and how much in the child's wellbeing? Judging by the silence of those responsible, the answer is in no hurry to arrive.