Unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents: The glaring contrast between a legal and a psychological perspective

Abstract

Unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents are a vulnerable group: they live not only in a relatively difficult situation as minor refugees staying in another country, but also face other risks due to the absence of their parents, such as traumatic experiences, exploitation or abuse. The difficult living situation of these unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents might therefore threaten their emotional well-being, resulting in important emotional and behavioural problems. This ‘psychological’ perspective shows the necessity of a strongly elaborated reception and care system for these children and adolescents in order to meet their specific situation and needs. Nevertheless, the case study of unaccompanied refugee minors living in Belgium, as explored in this paper, shows that the legal perspective on these youths – considering them as ‘refugees’ and ‘migrants’, not as ‘children’ – is predominantly the starting point to build the care system on. Moreover, this legal perspective contrasts sharply with the psychological perspective, as such that these children and adolescents do not receive appropriate support and care as they need.

Introduction

According to the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR, 2004 in: Ingleby, 2005), at the end of 2003, some 35.5 million of the world's population had been forced to leave their homes in search of shelter from organised violence. Most of these (23.6 million) remained within the borders of their own country, becoming ‘internally displaced persons’, while 11.9 million went abroad to become refugees (Ingleby, 2005). Only a minority of these flees to Europe (7%) or Northern America (3%), the major refugee burden is shouldered by non-Western countries (Middle East 37%, Africa 27%, and Southern and Central Asia 16%) (Ingleby, 2005). Approximately half of the worldwide refugee population are children and adolescents under the age of 18 years old (Bhabha and Young, 1999, Russell, 1999, UNHCR, 2004), and an important group of them are unaccompanied, minors separated from their parents or previous primary caregiver (SCEP, 2004). These unaccompanied or separated children and adolescents are among the most vulnerable of the entire refugee population (Halvorsen, 2002).

This paper, as part of a large study on the emotional well-being of unaccompanied refugee youths living in Belgium, firstly portrays this group of unaccompanied refugee children and adolescents from both a legal and a psychological perspective. These perspectives are then confronted with the current Belgian care and reception system for this group: how is this care system constructed, which are the premises it is built on, and which of the described perspectives – the psychological or the legal – does it take as starting point? Finally, this leads us to elaborating some recommendations towards the reception and care for these children and adolescents.