La Strada Documentation Center

Undocumented Children in Europe: Invisible Victims of Immigration Restrictions

Document number
2076
Date
2008
Title
Undocumented Children in Europe: Invisible Victims of Immigration Restrictions
Author/publisher
Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM)
Availability
View/save PDF version of this document
Document type(s)
Research/Study/Analysis,
Keywords
Best Interests Principle, Child Victims of Trafficking, Separated Migrant Children, Unaccompanied minors, Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Child protection systems, Child Trafficking, Child Prostitution, Child Pornography,
Summary

Some aspects of recent European policies on the control of irregular immigration arouse strong concern about their effects on undocumented children and on these children’s access to basic social rights. Detention of undocumented migrants, including children with their families, is a common practice in most of the European countries; the repatriation of children with their families or even alone has been reported not only by NGOs but also by the European Court for Human Rights.

The control policies against irregular migration currently being pursued by the European Union have dramatically switched the attention of governments and public opinion from the need to protect these young immigrants as children, to the repression of their irregular position. The very status of young immigrants as children is regularly challenged by national immigration control authorities who seek to take advantage of the apparent maturity of many teenagers.

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