Fleeing persecution and seeking protection (Asylum)

All Member States identified seeking asylum as one of the (in some cases main) motivations for the entry of an unaccompanied minor, albeit to varying degrees of prominence as outlined below. To some extent, this is because the filing of an application for asylum is the main method by which an unaccompanied minor may be granted a legal status in the Member States. Various reasons are given for fleeing and seeking protection, such as from wars, civil wars, crises, riots and torture in the country of origin, disturbances and conflicts or equally from poverty and natural catastrophes, plus (impending) political persecution, or dangers by reason of their ethnic or religious affiliations, or the association of a family member with political or other activity, as well as the threat of honour-related violence. A minor may have left their country of origin accompanied by their parents, their guardian or other family members. However, when fleeing the dangers outlined above, this departure can often be impulsive and family members can lose one another along the way, resulting in the minor entering an EU Member State unaccompanied.

The experience in Germany is that it can be hard for children and young persons to make clear, or present in a structured manner, the precise reasons for their flight and/or migration in conversations with persons who work for the authorities. Given that the ability to describe the circumstances of one’s flight in a credible manner presupposes a certain level of maturity, a majority of unaccompanied minors are, therefore, not capable of asserting reasons for flight that would correspond to the criteria for “political persecution” under asylum law. The recognition of “political persecution” is a precondition both for the recognition as a person entitled to asylum and for the granting of refugee status. Belgium and Italy have also found that some unaccompanied minors claim asylum on the grounds of persecution, but in reality are actually seeking a better education and way of life. The experience in the United Kingdom is that some unaccompanied minors are often reluctant to discuss their pre-flight and migration stories and there is a suggestion that their reticence may be because they are traumatised or they have been ‘rehearsed’ (by parents or agents) to tell a story that will fulfil asylum conditions, amplifying political reasons and omitting economic reasons for seeking asylum.

It is assumed by experts in Austria and in the Netherlands that most unaccompanied minors enter to seek asylum. Conversely for Belgium, between 30% and 40% of unaccompanied minors apply for asylum, the majority (60% to 70%) being, in most cases, illegally resident.

The majority of unaccompanied minors in the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Sweden and United Kingdom apply for asylum, although for the former, there has been a change since 2008 in this trend. In Finland, unaccompanied minors typically apply for asylum at an inland police department, although individual grounds for seeking asylum are rare and typically involved domestic violence or sexual abuse. For France, the countries of origin most affected by this phenomenon are the Sub-Saharan African states.

Many children and youths who lodge an application for asylum in Germany are fleeing because their parents too are fleeing or have fled, but become separated from their parents during their flight or while being smuggled into Europe. Another reason, also cited in the Netherlands, for seeking protection is the fear of impending harmful practices (e.g. genital mutilation of girls and young women in African countries), as well as the fear of forced marriage of girls and young women and of sexual abuse or forced prostitution. Other reasons mentioned are to avoid slavery or child labour (Afghanistan, Angola, Kenya), persecution as a result of refusal to enter national service or fear of conscription (Russia), collective punishment for the crimes of a family member (Ethiopia) or enforced recruitment as child soldiers (African countries such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Guinea).

Most of the (admittedly few in number) unaccompanied minors entering Portugal are from West African nations, especially countries that are part of the Economic Community of West African States, and their motivation is related to the need for protection and the desire to escape from situations of serious violations of human rights – particularly persecutions motivated by race, ethnic origin or gender – armed conflicts, forced military recruitment and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Given this reality, the underlying reason why unaccompanied minors leave their countries of origin has to do with a quest to find a safe destination. The political instability in their countries of origin, characterised by armed conflicts, as well as situations of serious need and privations, all serve to motivate escapes.

4.2 Family Reunification

A number of routes by which a family becomes reunited in an EU Member State were identified. Some unaccompanied minors arrive in order to join their parents and/or other family members who, in the case of, for example, the Czech Republic, may sometimes themselves be illegally staying. As the procedure for family reunification is sometimes

complicated and takes a long time, entering as an unaccompanied minor is attempted in order to try another way.

Another route identified is for the minor to come ahead of the family in order to be the first one to try to obtain asylum and, once recognised as a refugee, apply for family reunification in accordance with the Family Reunification Directive (see Section 3.2.5). Finland has found that when these so-called “anchor children” are granted a residence permit, an application for family reunification is submitted almost without exception. Their evidence for the existence of this phenomenon is provided by the fact that the Eurodac system more and more frequently reveals fingerprints of a minor seeking asylum having been registered in another Member State. Tighter policies in the processing of applications for family reunification in some Member States are considered to drive children to seek for asylum in a Member State where family reunification is thought to be easier. Poland too has cases of family members applying for family reunification once refugee status has been granted to an unaccompanied minor.

In Ireland, there is an important distinction to be made between minors who arrive unaccompanied but who have family resident in Ireland and those that arrive alone and have no family in the state. Available data⁶⁸ indicates that between 2002 and 2007 one-half to two-thirds of unaccompanied minors were reunited with family members after referral to the Social Services within the Greater Dublin region. In 2008, just under half of minors referred to the service were reunited with family. It cannot be assumed, however, that this type of informal family reunification is the motivation behind all such minors travelling to Ireland – some may proceed, for example, to claim asylum.

Another development in Ireland, which occurred in January 2005 in order to address concerns that migrants were travelling to Ireland and having children in order to gain residency, was a very significant change in relation to non-Irish nationals and Irish citizenship. Prior to the enactment of the Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act 2004,⁶⁹ Ireland granted citizenship to everyone born on the territory. Up to January 2003, the non-Irish parents of Irish-born children could apply for residency based on the Irish citizenship of their child. It was possible, therefore, that older siblings of Irish-born children were sent to join

68 Based on data received from the HSE Social Work Team for Separated Children Seeking Asylum within the Greater Dublin Area.

69 Available from http://www.dail.ie/viewdoc.asp?fn=/documents/bills28/acts/2004/a3804.pdf.

their parents in Ireland. Whilst no data exist on whether or not minors are pregnant on arrival, anecdotally this was not believed to be a major issue, even prior to this change in the citizenship law. The proportion of unaccompanied minors travelling to Ireland who were then informally reunited with family grew steadily from 21% in 2000 to peak of 69% in 2005.⁷⁰ The changes in citizenship provisions meant that any person born in Ireland after 1 January 2005 to non-Irish parents would not be automatically entitled to be an Irish citizen unless one of the parents was lawfully resident in Ireland for at least three out of the four years preceding the child's birth. Families of Irish born children were thus invited to apply for permission to remain in Ireland under the Irish Born Child 2005 Scheme (IBC/05).⁷¹ Almost 18 000 applications were submitted under the Scheme and of these almost 16 700 were approved.

Applicants under the IBC/05 Scheme were asked to sign a declaration which stated that they understood that, if they were granted residency, this would not give them any entitlement to reunification with any other family members residing outside of the country. This was widely (and wrongly) interpreted as a ban on family reunification applications and some NGOs have commented that this confusion probably led to large numbers of older siblings being brought into the country by informal channels.