Family reunification for refugee children to be eased

The Finnish Immigration Authority (Migri) will relax its policy on family reunification for refugee children following a directive from the European Court of Justice, reported national broadcaster Yle.

The new guideline will entitle the refugee children with the right to continue the family reunification process even after their age of 18.

According to the existing rule Finland along with other EU countries have terminated the family reunification process after the applicant reached to 18 years. But now the Migri will bring change to the law as Finnish rule cannot contradict the European Union law.

“We will select all the cases where the EU’s new ruling applies and make sure there are no inconsistencies,” said the Yle report quoting Sanna Helariutta from Migri.

The young refugees in Finland are facing difficulties to bring their families to Finland as Migri rejected about 93 percent of applications during the recent years, said the Yle report, adding that out of the 291 family reunification applications that Migri received between 2011 and 2015, only 21 requests were granted.

The United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in March criticised Finland for violating the rights of asylum seeker children by detaining them and says that deporting them to countries are unsafe.

The new rule, however, will not affect decisions already made which cannot be appealed, the Yle report said.