EU or UK Child-Sponsored Family Reunification Policy: Who’s Right? Whose Rights?

The increase in numbers of children travelling unaccompanied to Europe has provoked a sensitive debate as to how to treat their family members. While EU Member States generally grant family reunification for unaccompanied minors, the UK has opted to permit reunion in only ‘exceptional circumstances’. Widely criticised, the UK government counters that child-sponsored family reunification creates incentives for unaccompanied migration that place children at risk. This article explores both policies from a human rights perspective. It suggests that, as regards children reaching Europe, EU policy is more consistent with human rights norms. However, UK policy raises legitimate questions about obligations towards children beyond Europe’s borders. A rights-based justification for either EU or UK policy can be constructed, but requires recourse to additional principles on the balancing of rights among different groups of children. Clearer articulation and scrutiny of these principles could strengthen the rights rationale for child-sponsored family reunification.

Reinventing the Refugee Camp as the City: Theoretical Considerations about Unaccompanied Minors

The visible presence of migrant children (including unaccompanied minors) in current migratory flows manifestly requires some form of state attention in migrant destination states. In recent decades, the question of who is entitled to rights has become ever more discussed. At the same time, immigration regulations have tightened with increasing punitive measures taken against those labelled ‘undeserved and undocumented’. This paper seeks to connect a critical discussion of camp urbanization with the discourse on child rights within the context of the refugee camp space. Considering the urban not simply as a physical space, but also as a particular form of political community and the exercise of citizenship space, the paper explores the question: how does the reinvention of the camp as an urban space contribute to a new and better understanding of experiences and resources that unaccompanied minors arrive with? The article uses the analyses of the reference literature and provides an overview of some concepts to get a broader picture of spatial childhood within the camp. The conclusion is that children do not feature in the discussion of camp urbanization as individual subjects of concern. They are considered as possessions of adults. Moreover, they are trapped in a liminal situation of permanent temporariness. To spend one’s life in such a limbo of disenfranchised destitute has particularly devastating consequences for children.

Mental health of unaccompanied children: effects of U.S. immigration policies

Background There is an unprecedented surge of forcibly displaced people globally, with a crisis of unaccompanied minors seeking haven across the US border. Aims This paper aims to provide an understanding of the intersection between mental health and immigration policies. Method Examples of contemporary policies that focus on the deterrence, detention and deportation of unaccompanied minors in the USA, will be discussed, as well as the mental health effects of such ‘iron triangle’ immigration policies. Results In the ideal circumstances, systems and policies for migrant children would uphold international humanitarian law, hasten the shift from enforcement to protection, adhere to a ‘do no (further) harm’ model that uses a trauma-informed, culturally responsive approach to engaging with migrant children, engage the community as stakeholders to end detention and advocate to share the burden of responsibility. Conclusions Building a humanitarian response that protects both country and migrant interest is possible through commitment and policy change that addresses mental, physical and legal protection needs.

Analysis of interrater reliability in age assessment of minors: how does expertise influence the evaluation?

Nowadays, the clinical forensic medical management of migration flows comprises the age assessment of unaccompanied minors. The process of age estimation is a fundamental pillar for legally ensuring the minors’ rights and their protection needs. The procedure is complex and involves different phases and actors, from medical doctors to law enforcement officers. The present study aimed to investigate the performance of Greulich and Pyle, Demirjian, and Mincer methods when performed by raters both trained and without training. Also, the interrater reliability within groups of raters from different areas of expertise was evaluated. A total of 36 participants were enrolled for this study, divided in two groups according to their level of experience with age estimation methods. Each rater was asked to allocate stages and standards for age assessment, evaluating ten orthopantomograms and ten hand-wrist roentgenograms. The interrater reliability expressed through the Fleiss Kappa coefficient and the agreement with the reference standard were calculated. The results showed that none of the categories analyzed could reach a good interrater reliability (ĸ > 0.8) for both methods. The study results highlighted variation and disagreement in the interpretation of the sample among raters and in the subsequent stages and standards allocation. In conclusion, the results of this study highlight that expertise does influence the reliability of the most utilized methods of age estimation of living individuals and stress the importance of proper training and practice, which could greatly increase the accuracy of age assessments.

The asylum–child welfare paradox: unaccompanied minors in Austria

Existing research shows that right-wing populist imaginaries and discourses on “bogus asylum seekers” mobilise feelings of fear and panic and serve to legitimise increasingly restrictive asylum policies in Europe. In light of this ongoing development, this paper addresses a more intrinsic and structural aspect of asylum, which requires balancing the inclusion and exclusion of persecuted third-country nationals. This paradox is most evident with unaccompanied minors who are caught between state norms and practices that are both exclusionary and repressive (asylum) and inclusive and caring (child welfare). In order to tackle this dilemma, we explore how the asylum–child welfare paradox is organised and formalised by the state and how it affects unaccompanied minors. Based on interviews with unaccompanied minors in Austria and experts who work with them, the findings show that child and youth welfare norms and practices that are formalised as part of the asylum procedure improve unaccompanied minors’ living conditions without dismantling asylum norms and practices of surveillance, conditionality, and scarcity. Judging by their simultaneous implementation, the state preserves and reinforces exclusionary and repressive asylum norms not despite but through child welfare norms and practices.