10 Things You Didn’t Know About Europe’s Child Refugee Crisis
Child migration involves minors between ages 3 and 18 years of age traveling with or without parents or guardian, across country or regional borders. They may or may not have legal travel documents with them, and they arrive in a country (not necessarily their final destination) in the capacity of refugee, asylum seeker, or economic migrant.
An increasing number of minors arriving in European countries are refugees escaping persecution, war and devastation, or are otherwise displaced. Many unaccompanied children are escaping violence, exploitation, abuse, and regional conflict. Children abandoned by
, or separated from, parents move from place to place and/or country to country seeking safety where they can heal and thrive.The majority of refugee minors making their way into EU Member States are male and between the ages of 15 and 18 years old. They have fled violent conflict/war and physical and moral starvation in Afghanistan, Iraq, Western or Central Africa, or Somalia. Most try to apply for asylum after arriving in the receiving country. Most cases of unaccompanied migrant/refugee children arriving in Spain are reviewed under a non-asylum procedure.
All individuals, including unaccompanied these refugee children, enjoy freedom of movement within Europe. Citizens of EU Member States and the EFTA States of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland are permitted to enter and stay in any EU Member State for up to three months without registration. They are granted a permit to stay when they can verify income. The rights of children as unaccompanied migrants are not clearly defined, however. As a result, each individual national government interprets and enforces the rules of freedom of movement for unaccompanied children (under 18 years of age) differently.
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