Numbers Unaccompanied Underaged Migrants from Africa on Rise in Spain

Morrocan boy in Spain

Crackdowns on illegal immigration by Spain meanwhile have reduced the number of migrants coming from Africa. But one sort of immigrant is coming in greater numbers: underage North Africans. Temporary shelters for the young unaccompanied migrants are overflowing and Muslim leaders are warning that they are ripe recruits for Islamic radicals. Jerome Socolovsky sent us this report:

Two teenaged North Africans who came to Spain on their own are Sohail Baharu and Abdel Ghani Maroufi. They now live in an absorption center in the southern Spanish town of Ecija. Sohail’s room is very tidy. The 19-year-old sports a rapper's baseball cap and pony tail. The CD player, one of his prized possessions, plays the latest music from North Africa and he treasures photos of his family.

"Life is hard without your parents or anything, you know, it's just really hard," says Sohail.

Beside him, 18-year-old Abdel Ghani Maroufi talks about crossing the Strait of Gibraltar last year with 17 other underage migrants, in a small fishing boat – or patera.

Prayer structures the day for many Muslim migrants in Spain

"We spent two days at sea. There were 39 people, 18 minors, and the rest were adults. The waves were very high. I was afraid. But I knew that when I came here, being 17 years old, there would be a center that would help me get working papers."

Spain has an agreement with Morocco that allows Spanish authorities to deport Moroccan adults who arrive illegally almost immediately. But minors are a tricky issue. Spanish law says they can only be sent back if their parents are located – and often the parents in Morocco don't cooperate with efforts to locate them. That's the case even though some parents have been known to call the absorption centers in Spain to make sure their child arrived safely.

The center in Écija is about an hour from Seville and is run by a charity called Aproni. Here, the young migrants get help in finding a job and applying for working papers. They learn Spanish and about Spanish society. Elena Rodriquez of Aproni says social workers are realistic. Nearly all of the teenage North Africans are male. Free condoms are readily available. Her views are line with the laissez faire view of youth sexuality that predominates in Spain these days. As for the young migrants, Rodriguez argues it's right that it's so hard to deport them.

"If they've risked their lives to come in a patera or in the undercarriage of a bus, it's because of the conditions they live in their country of origin. Because no one risks their life for nothing. So we are against deportation."

Cardboard shack built ingeniously inside deserted greenhouse. The migrants have to withstand temperatures of 45°C

While North Africa struggles with poverty and political instability, Spain has a huge need for unskilled labor, especially in the booming construction sector. In the last half decade, the number of foreign born adults has quadrupled to around four million, or 12 percent of the population. According to government figures, more than 2,500 migrant minors arrived in Spain last year. More than a third came without parents.

This year, the number appears to be growing. Authorities are converting schools, and even an old shellfish plant, into temporary absorption centers. In the Canary Islands, human rights monitors who visited government-run shelters said they were "prison-like." Elena Rodriguez says the government can't handle the influx, and is turning for help to charities like hers.

"The resources of the administration are collapsing. If so many young people are coming almost every day, and there are not enough resources or centers, especially in the coastal provinces where they are arriving, then absorption centers have to be created at a fast pace."

But she warns that the new arrivals are diverting resources that normally go to Spanish teenagers with problems. Sohail and Abdelghani have lived in different Aproni shelters for more than a year now. Sohail says he has found a job, but he gets paid under the table so it won't qualify him for working papers.

"It's very tough to find work with a contract. They don't want to give it to you, especially if you're an immigrant, and if you don't know don't know someone who knows the right people," he says.

Such difficulties make these youngsters a risk for all of Spanish society, warns Kamel Rahmouni. He's the director of the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers, which runs a shelter for migrant children in Madrid.

"I think we can say this is an easy terrain for the radicals looking for people to indoctrinate. I think we can all agree with that. These kids, at their age and with the amount of problems they have, can be easy prey for and can easily fall into the hands of those radicals."

The imam of Madrid's largest mosque recently called unaccompanied minors "a time bomb." That's a loaded term here in Spain. The bombing of commuter trains three years ago in Madrid, was allegedly carried out by a group of mainly young Moroccans who were inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology. Muslim leaders say that cracking down on underage migration by trying to deport the young migrants will only increase the likelihood of radicalization. Instead, they say authorities need to work more on integrating the youngsters into Spanish society and find them jobs. That’s exactly what the foundation that runs the shelter in Ecija is trying to do. The guys listening to music at the shelter don't seem to think much of Osama Bin Laden. Their idols are more likely to be the American gangsta rappers they like to sing along with.