French police detain six-year-old girl for three days over passport mistake
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Version 0 of 1. A six-year-old girl was held by Paris airport police for three days over suspicions she had a fake passport. The French girl was returned to her mother on Friday after a judge ordered her release. Authorities insist police were doing their job of protecting children from trafficking. But the case has caused indignation in France amid a sensitive debate over police treatment of undocumented migrants coming to Europe in recent months. The girl was detained at Charles de Gaulle airport on Saturday, after arriving from Cameroon, said lawyer Sidonie Leoue. The child was travelling as an unaccompanied minor, carrying all necessary documents, and her mother was waiting at the airport to greet her, Leoue said. She ended up waiting for three days after police suspected thought the girl’s passport photo did not resemble her, according to the lawyer and the French interior ministry. The Paris-born girl was held in a special police daycare unit for three days before she appeared before a judge, who asked the girl to identify her mother, who sat in the courtroom. The girl also successfully identified teachers and classmates at a French school she had attended in photos she was shown in court. “The judge said it was all a mistake” and ordered the girl’s release, Leoue said. “It’s inadmissible that minors are held there like this, especially for a reason such as this.” Pierre-Henry Brandet, an interior ministry spokesman, said police were still analysing whether the passport was valid and confiscated it pending further investigation. “Verifying the identity of a child, establishing with certainty the link between the [child] and the person travelling with them or waiting for them at the airport, is about protecting the child against trafficking, kidnapping,” he said. He added that children are held in a special nursery at the airport run by Red Cross staff “to make their stay as calm as possible”. However, amid anger over the girl’s case, he said the ministry issued guidance Friday urging border police to handle such cases very quickly to avoid delays. Pierre Henry, head of migrants’ rights group France Terre d’Asile, said the case and another reported in French media Friday about a three-year-old girl from Ivory Coast who was also detained at the airport, were “abhorrent” and reflected the “state of thinking” and suspicion surrounding migrants. “It is an incident that should be condemned, and should lead to reflection,” said Henry. He warned against generalities, however, and acknowledged that airport police have made marked improvements in the handling of underage illegal migrants in recent years. The girl has not been identified because of her age. Her mother told a radio station her daughter “cried a lot” after the incident. “She doesn’t stop talking about it,” said the mother, who was named only as Isabelle. “She asks each time: ‘But why are they talking about me? Why did they do this to me?’” |