European Trade Union Committee for Education

More than 200 Swiss public and private organisations working to promote children's and human rights, including the umbrella organisation of Swiss teachers' associations (LCH) and the ETUCE member organisation SER-Syndicat des Enseignants Romands, have signed the Dublin Appeal launched internationally in late April.

The organisations aim, among other points, to remind Switzerland of its obligations to protect refugee children and their families and call on the federal authorities to process the asylum application of persons who arrived in Switzerland from another European country, following humanitarian, solidarity and social justice grounds.

Indeed, the Dublin Regulation itself provides for taking account the vulnerability of people when it is applied "on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, in order to bring together family members".

The Appeal against the ‘blind application’ of the Dublin Regulation simply requires a change in the administrative practices used in the context of the application of the Dublin Regulation and within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in order to protect the best educational interests of the child, in particular, vulnerable refugee children.

ETUCE support SER’s actions and reminds that education is a fundamental human right and that inclusive education, especially for refugee children, is vital for their social integration so as to achieve the same educational standards as their native peers, as stated in the 2016 ETUCE resolution on Refugee Children.