“A child is a child, not an undocumented person” – A report on services for undocumented children and families and on access to these services

In Finland, many families with children have been driven into undocumented status, a condition which many of those interviewed for this report described as “constant motion” and life in “a limbo without rights”. Behind these realities are insufficiently investigated grounds for asylum as well as changes in legislation, such as the removal of humanitarian protection from the grounds for granting a residence permit in 2016, which rendered many families with children, some of whom had been living in Finland for years already, undocumented.

Particularly third sector organisations that support undocumented persons are tracing the services available to families with varying and unstable residence statuses. Such organisations are also working towards understanding how families living in these situations, which often feel hopeless, could find a way to legalise their residence. This report contributes to the conversation by examining services available for undocumented families with children and their experiences of accessing them in the Helsinki and Turku regions through expert interviews and a survey conducted for Arabic-speaking families. Furthermore, it sheds light on the future of the services. In doing so, the report aims to generate new information about the target group and use it in Save the Children’s advocacy work.

Based on this report, undocumented families face numerous systemic challenges that hinder their access to public services and needed support; these include lack of trust in public services, challenges related to language skills and a lack of knowledge about their rights and the available services. Both service providers and undocumented families have gaps in their understanding of the overall impact of being undocumented on life as well as of the rights of undocumented persons to services. Whilst the participation of third sector organisations in the development of services in cooperation with authorities has improved the situation, the report shows, that there is still work to do in this regard.