Refugee Survey Quarterly Advance Access originally published online on February 7, 2009
Refugee Survey Quarterly 2008 27(4):63-73; doi:10.1093/rsq/hdn049
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This article appears in the following Refugee Survey Quarterly issue: CHILDREN AT RISK [View the issue table of contents]
The Challenges of Ensuring Protection to Unaccompanied and Separated Children in Composite Flows in Europe
*Liv Feijen is Senior Regional Protection Officer, at the UNHCR Regional Representation for the Baltic and Nordic countries, Stockholm, Sweden. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the United Nations.
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Abstract |
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To identify and ensure the protection of persons in need of international protection in the context of composite flows of people is one of the major challenges facing Governments in Europe today. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cooperates closely with national authorities throughout Europe, in particular in the Mediterranean region, in designing comprehensive strategies within multilateral and bilateral frameworks aimed at identifying those in need of protection, as well as, developing practical mechanisms and burden-sharing arrangements to ensure protection. Unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum represent one of the most vulnerable categories of people in mixed movements. They tend to be neglected when strategies are adopted to address this problem. In the last couple of years, disturbing reports have been released by human rights organizations on the hazards facing children who are smuggled or trafficked to Europe, who endure deplorable living conditions upon arrival and often do not have access to asylum or migration procedures or simply disappear. The purpose of this article is to outline the legal obligations of states to protect this category of children in accordance with international and European standards and to propose how child-sensitive migration management systems could be designed to accord this group an adequate level of protection.