The fundamental rights of unaccompanied minors in EU asylum law: a dubious trade-off between control and protection
- PDF / 699,901 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 75 Downloads / 218 Views
The fundamental rights of unaccompanied minors in EU asylum law: a dubious trade-off between control and protection Karen Mets1
© @ ERA 2020
Abstract The current Common European Asylum System (CEAS) includes several measures to protect unaccompanied minors. New CEAS proposals launched in 2016 continued to expand some of the existing safeguards but also introduced a more punitive approach towards asylum-seekers, sanctioning and preventing secondary movements and possible abuse of the asylum system. These measures need to be viewed against the backdrop of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, creating a policy climate more focussed on control and deterrence. This equally affects unaccompanied minors, who struggle to enjoy the rights granted to them, as EU member states move towards an increasingly restrictive interpretation of the CEAS. Keywords Unaccompanied minors · Asylum · EU
1 Introduction Unaccompanied minors represent an important proportion of asylum-seekers arriving to the European Union (EU), requiring special attention both from a legal and operational perspective. This group became more prominent during the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 when nearly 90,000 unaccompanied minors arrived,1 representing 7% of all asylum applications in the EU.2 Most unaccompanied minors seeking asylum 1 EUROSTAT (2016) ‘Almost 90,000 unaccompanied minors among asylum-seekers registered in the EU
in 2015’ Eurostat press release 87/2016. 2 European Asylum Support Office (EASO), Annual report on the situation of asylum in the European
Union, 2015, p. 109: ‘In 2015, a total of 95 985 unaccompanied minors (UAMs) applied for international
B K. Mets
[email protected]; [email protected]
1
Senior Adviser, Asylum and Migration, Save the Children Europe, Brussels, Belgium
K. Mets
in the EU in the last five years came from Afghanistan, Syria or Eritrea, and were registered in Germany, Italy, Sweden and Greece.3 The Common European Asylum System (CEAS) includes a number of measures to protect unaccompanied minors, including access to a guardian or representative, limits to immigration detention and due consideration for the best interests of the child. Since 2015 however, the changing political climate has led to new, more restrictive policies and practises affecting unaccompanied minors across the EU and beyond. For instance, reports indicate that unaccompanied minors are increasingly subject to pushbacks at borders,4 disputes arise around age assessment of unaccompanied minors,5 and legal obstacles have restricted their access to family reunification under the Dublin Regulation in various EU member states.6 This article aims to give an overview of rights of unaccompanied minors in the current CEAS (Sect. 2) and how discussions have been evolving since the launch of new or recast European Commission Proposals of 2016, which included a more punitive approach towards asylum-seekers, but -to a certain degree- strengthened rights of unaccompanied minors (Sect. 3). The article aims to demonstrate that, while safeguar
Data Loading...
