The Child Welfare Commission will present its final report on Tuesday. The body under the former Supreme Court President Irmgard Griss was appointed by Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) after the deportation of schoolgirls to Georgia and Armenia, which was particularly controversial in left and church circles. The Commission should consider the importance of children’s rights and best interests in decisions on the right to asylum and residence.
At the beginning of her task, Griss announced that individual cases would also be looked at and that they would work with experts from family, European, asylum and residence law. In addition, the expertise of psychologists, government officials, youth workers, NGOs and youth representatives should be sought. Some of them like the managing director of the child protection organization “Möwe” Hedwig Wölfl and youth psychiatrist Ernst Berger will support Griss in the presentation of the report.
The deportation of the siblings from Georgia and Armenia caused quite a stir at the beginning of the year, even if the deportation was hardly controversial in legal terms in either case. However, supporters had argued that the children, some of whom had been living in Austria for a long time, had been well integrated and tried to prevent them from being brought out of the country by means of protests that received much media attention. The result was also a coalition conflict between the ÖVP, which insisted on deportation, and the Greens, who wanted to enable the children to stay in Austria. Kogler, who then represented Minister of Justice Alma Zadic (Greens) during her baby break, had finally set up the Child Welfare Commission.
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