SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Feb. 11 (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Insular Institute of Social and Socio-Health Care (IASS), dependent on the Cabildo de Tenerife, has opened a specialized center to care for unaccompanied foreign girls through its Organic Unit for Children and Families.
The new service seeks to respond to and address the specific needs and characteristics of this group, given the high risk of exposure to serious human rights violations in their countries of origin or during the migration journey.
The Minister of Social Action of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Marián Franquet, visited this Friday the center with which the island corporation wants to attend to the specific needs of minors in a stage in which, since the end of 2021, the arrival has increased from cayucos to the Canary Islands with women and girls on board.
“From the IASS we have wanted to collaborate as a sign of solidarity between islands, contributing our specialization and our means to serve them,” he assured, while stressing the importance of “generating safe spaces in which these girls and young women feel comfortable and calm. “.
In addition, he commented that, given the conditions that many have suffered and that range from sexual violence to trafficking, it is the responsibility of the institute to adapt the services to provide care that favors social integration.
To this end, the IASS has adapted one of its reception centers for foreign minors in order to create a specialized environment in which only the fostered girls reside and in which the conditions are provided so that they feel safe and their needs are taken care of. concrete needs.
In this process, we have had the support and participation of foreign minors who were previously housed in this center, who have been informed since the beginning of the project and who have been housed in other centers of the network, adapted to their needs. personal needs and characteristics.
Currently, the center houses nine girls, aged between 9 and 14 years old, who come from the Ivory Coast, Morocco and Guinea.
The New World Solidarity Association, with recognized prestige and experience in the care of foreign minors, is in charge of managing the center, thanks to a contract with the institute.
The Organic Unit for Childhood and Family of the IASS has been in charge of training the educational staff and the management of the center, to give them the necessary keys for the assessment and specialized intervention with unaccompanied foreign minors.
