At the end of November, the NGO Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has reported that 29 women and children have been kidnapped by armed men while they were trying to cross the Mediterranean sea. This event underlines the depth of the insecurity of the Mediterranean crossing.
Current Statistics on Unaccompanied Migrant Children
The tragedy discovered by MSF, off the coast of Libya, sheds light on the unaccompanied migrant issue. Indeed, the NGO has saved 83 men and unaccompanied minors, including 70 that were in the sea. According to UNICEF, 1,500 children have died or gone missing in crossing the Mediterranean sea, since 2018. It represents 1 in 5 people trying to cross the sea to join Europe.
These numbers increased drastically. In 2023, the number of children who died in crossing the Mediterranean sea has doubled in the first part of the year comparing the same period the year before. 11, 600 children have joined Italy from North Africa during the six first months of 2023. It represents an average of 428 children every week according to UNICEF.
Finally, it is 55,700 children that have arrived on the South European shores in 2023, an increase of 58% comparing to 2022. 35,500 children were unaccompanied representing 69% of the children. This increase can be explained by the climate change and the multiplication of conflicts. These explain why young migrants run away from the violence of their homeland, unaccompanied for some of them.
In the Gambella refugees camp, over 60% are children and more than 22,000 live alone. Some of them have lost their parents in the conflict in South Sudan. In consequences, the children try to join Europe without an adult, increasing the riskiness of the crossing. Especially for the girls, who experience all types of violence during the journey.
Journey and Risks Faced by Unaccompanied Migrant Children
Left alone and by themselves, the children take massive risks to survive. First, to join the Mediterranean coasts, they have to escape the conflicts of their original country and across Africa or the Middle-East, during months. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) supports that the unaccompanied children are exposed at risk of violence, abuse, neglect, military recruitment and have no access to necessities such as food, water and shelter.
Numerous testimonials show that unaccompanied girls suffer of sexual abuse. Marie, a 14 migrant from Cameroon explains :“We arrived in a small village. […] People came to pick us up and take us to another place with women and children. We stayed a few days without leaving the place, eating or drinking. In this place, they were raping people and even children. They were about to rape me as well, but my mother managed to save me.”.
Even if Marie migrated with her mother, who saved her, this testimony shows that migrant children could be sexually abused, especially when they are unaccompanied. One in three migrant girls in North Africa have experienced sexual abuse, according a study released by the NGO Save the Children.
If the young unaccompanied people manage to join a boat, the danger does not disappear. Indeed, the conditions to cross the Mediterranean sea can be terrible. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, “the Central Mediterranean route (from Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia to Italy and Malta) had long been the deadliest migration route in the world”.
UNICEF compares this road as a “cemetery for children and their futures”. The international organization, which depends on the UN, supports that 11 children die each week on this road.
However, UNICEF precises that “many shipwrecks leave no survivors, and many go unrecorded, making the true number of casualties likely much higher.” which underscores the scale of this humanitarian disaster.
Reception and Care Systems for Unaccompanied Migrant Children
Some NGOs, others than MSF, are specialized in the rescuing and the care of children migrants. SOS Mediterranee is an European civil association of sea rescuing. Created in 2015, it has headquarters in Marseille, Berlin, Milan and Geneva and has three main missions : save, protect and testify.
To save people, SOS Mediteranee have 2 boats, named Aquarius and Ocean Viking. One quarter of the migrants saved by those boats are minors, and alone for most of them. The NGO provides foods and health services whbrouillon-autoen people are rescued. SOS Mediterranee explains : “The medical team on board encounters numerous cases of gunshot and knife wounds, multiple fractures, signs of torture, skin diseases and respiratory infections”.
Then, the NGO gives the opportunity to the saved migrants to testify in order to receive more help after their journey. In that case, NGOs as Refugee Council, try to provide the best conditions of arrivals. Refugee Council is specialized in working with refugee children who arrive in UK alone. The unaccompanied children can find asylum and welfare support with this association. Mental health therapy was set up to help the children overcome the horrors they had seen.
What about states ? Are they protecting children migrants ?
Some of them are part of international organizations depending on the UN. UNICEF is an example. The worldwide NGO works in providing an asylum, psychological support and education services to the children migrants. In addition, UNICEF collaborates with countries to strengthen national child protection, social support, and migration systems to ensure children are safe during their journeys.
The deaths of children are caused not only by emergencies, conflicts, and climate risks but also by the lack of political action to ensure safe asylum access and to protect children’s rights. According the NGOs, more action is needed by regional countries and the EU to better protect vulnerable children at sea and in transit. Governments must uphold children’s rights in line with national and international law, ensuring that the Convention on the Rights of the Child is respected regardless of borders.
Indeed, the host of migrants is a controversial subject for many countries that receive refugees. In Italy, one of the main migration destinations, the prime minister Giorgia Meloni is trying to send the migrants to Albania. In Canary Islands, the capacity of the asylum for minors is exceeded. On 2,000 places available, 5,500 children refugees are struggling. The Spanish government has promised to invests 50 million of euros, to extend the capacities of the asylum. Nevertheless, the government of Canary Island, defended that it will be not enough to host all these unaccompanied children migrants.
Legal Framework and Protection Measures
The legal Framework of the protection of unaccompanied children migrants is made in three stages : international law, European Union law and Member States’ legal and policy Framework. First, United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child with the article 22 ensures that all States Parties must take appropriate measures to protect children seeking refuge.
The maritime law guarantees that all boat captains and States have an obligation to render assistance without delay to anyone in distress at sea. Then, the Directive IMO 167, mentions that survivors must be disembarked in a place where their safety is no longer threatened, as soon as reasonably possible.
At the European scale, the member states have the primary responsibility for child protection systems. Nevertheless, European Union has policies for the children migrants and legal instruments. Common European asylum system (CEAS) provides the legal framework, the conditions and the reception of children. For example, the action plan on unaccompanied minors (2010-2014) helped to raise awareness of this issue. The Dublin regulation gives superiority to the interests of the child. The Dublin regulation gives superiority to the interests of the child. In that case, in 2013, the Reception conditions Directive established standards of reception, healthcare and other services intended to the children.
At national level, the justice of EU member states is working to comply with the directives set. For example, in September 2024, the government of the Canary islands has decided unilaterally to transfer responsibility for the reception of minors to the Spanish government. The consequence is that minors would no longer be considered “abandoned and helpless”, which placed them under the Autonomous Community’s guardianship, but would be taken into custody by the national police.
However, the Spanish courts objected, calling it discriminatory. Today, on the Canary Islands as elsewhere in Europe, the future of unaccompanied children migrants remains a question that must be thought by political decision-makers from around the world.
