In February 2026, a mother from Syria contacted METAdrasi’s Legal Aid Department together with her two minor children and her adult son. She was seeking help to reunite with her husband — the children’s father — who had reached the Netherlands as an asylum seeker. She was asking for help to be reunited with her husband and the father of her children, who had arrived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker.
The family had been forcibly separated while trying to reach Greece, when the mother and her children were detained by the Turkish authorities.
The case was especially challenging. The Netherlands is among the countries that rarely accept family reunification requests under the Dublin Regulation. Even more rarely are requests accepted when they concern the reunification of adult children with their parents.
The first request was rejected at the end of March. But the effort did not stop there. Όμως η προσπάθεια δεν σταμάτησε εκεί.
With METAdrasi’s legal support, a new request for reconsideration was submitted to the Dutch authorities. Eventually, the request was accepted — not only for the mother and her two minor children, but also for the family’s adult son.
Legal support is not just a procedure. Very often, it is the only way for a human story to be heard and for rights protected by law to be upheld.
METAdrasi’s Legal Aid Department provides specialized legal services to asylum seekers entering Greece through the islands of the Eastern Aegean, with particular focus on people belonging to vulnerable groups and those with increased international protection needs. As part of this work, METAdrasi’s lawyers also represent family reunification cases under the Dublin Regulation, helping asylum seekers be accepted and transferred to other European countries — and supporting families who were forced apart by persecution, conflict and war to find their way back to one another.
