It took Omar two attempts to leave The Gambia. In the first, with a ticket that his brother had paid for him, he was lost at sea and after a day adrift the boat returned to the coast. In the second, he managed to arrive in the Canary Islands after a seven-day trip whose dates he does not remember exactly, only that they left on Sunday and arrived on Sunday, in the autumn of 2022. The boy was 15 years old at the time and his passport confirms this, which shows his real name, different from the one reported in this report. The minority guarantees reception in a center under the protection of the autonomous community, but Omar was faced with physical evidence that considered him an adult and with a police instruction that warned against the possible falsification of Gambian passports. Contrary to the repeated jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, the boy was expelled from the center and a judicial process accompanied by Save the Children ended with a sentence in his favour, when he was already 18 years old and had a history of hospitalizations. Omar was a minor because his passport said so.
“They looked at my mouth, arms and eyes,” says the boy, a method that the UN rejects because it gives margins of error of up to four years, making it impossible to establish whether one is a teenager or has already left that period behind. That evidence said he was of age and police instructions on Gambian passports also worked against him. A first ruling in the Canary Islands, by the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, reversed that of the court of first instance and recognized that, according to the law on the rights and freedoms of foreigners in Spain, an immigrant whose passport certifies that he is a minor must not be considered undocumented “in order to be subjected to additional age determination tests”. The ruling is also based on the law on the legal protection of minors, which establishes that the Prosecutor’s Office must evaluate the reasons why the passport is considered unreliable.
“These judicial procedures do nothing but bring down the Prosecutor’s Office and the Institute of Forensic Medicine, when the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence already exists for these cases”, criticizes Jennifer Zuppiroli, specialist in Children and Movement at Save the Children. “What the passport indicates must prevail,” he maintains. But the labyrinth of migrants is never small. His identity document may be considered false, but it is not invalidated, says Zuppiroli, so much so that when the boy is expelled from the juvenile center he will not be able to enter other reception centers for adult migrants because there they will take into account what the passport says. “A possible false passport is only considered to suspect that they are older, for everything else it is considered valid, even for traveling by plane. It is inconsistent and discriminatory and creates a situation of helplessness”, complains the specialist.
Omar’s is not the only case in which age plays tricks on migrants. Among the entities working with them in the Canary Islands there are others, such as that of a 16-year-old boy whose age test placed him at 23. “And there he was, stuck in a macro camp for adults,” says an activist who did not want to give her name. “The passport was processed in Spain, but they don’t believe the age because of the wisdom teeth,” he adds.
The Gambian was expelled and went to various solidarity reception centres. In a written interview sent to the Canary Islands by this newspaper to have his native language, Mandiga, translated by a Save The Children interpreter, Omar says he lived “in a small town called Pirang, not far from the main town, Brikama, where he worked as a bricklayer and learned the Koran.” A friend was already in Spain and talked to him a lot, but it was the death of his father that precipitated his departure from Gambia: “I wanted to earn a living and help my family, it’s the only thing I miss from there.”
His boat touched the coast of Lanzarote and he was transferred to Canarias 50, the first arrival center in Las Palmas. “I was there for two days, but I had coronavirus and they sent me to a hotel for about a month and two weeks. Then they sent me to the Los Pinos center, which was in Buenos Aires street, even though it’s no longer there. I stayed in Los Pinos for more or less a year. Then I entered an apartment at the Canoa Solidaria (charity center), and I’ve been there since July 2024.”
In the Canary Islands it feels good, “because it’s not cold, like in the peninsula, in Madrid and Galicia it’s very cold and it rains continuously”. In the islands he began training as a welder, in the manufacturing assembly sector, but did not complete the two years “due to paperwork”. This is what he likes and would like to continue his studies to work as a welder in the future, but now he has to obtain documents that legalize his situation. “Sometimes I understand Spanish and sometimes I don’t, but normally when I study I understand everything, it’s not a problem when I’m in class. Now I understand better than before,” he tells this newspaper through his translator.
“I have a lot of friends here, especially in my football team, I play and I really like football. I also have friends from my country and some Spanish friends. And I can’t explain why, but I really like the Canary Islands.” “The bureaucracy was very difficult, because after obtaining the residency and canceling it, I had to start from scratch and it was very difficult.” Despite this, he believes he received good treatment from the police and the rest of the institutions and “relief” thanks to the psychological support that Save the Children offered him. He only remembers one day’s racist insults on a football field as a football. Not even those who play in the First Division are exempt. Work, savings, training and documents are, for now, your little dictionary.
