Standards to Ensure that Unaccompanied Migrant Children are Able to Fully Participate: A tool to assis actors in legal and judicial proceedings

Save the Children Sweden together with UNHCR’s Bureau for Europe, NIDOS in the Netherlands, Coram Children’s Legal Centre in the UK, Save the Children Italy, Don Calabria Institute, the Italian Ministry of Labour and Social Policies in Italy and the County Administration in Västra Götaland in Sweden, have received funding from the EU for a 12 month project, ending in September 2014. The project aims were to identify and promote good practices on reception and protection of unaccompanied migrant children based on national mappings carried out in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

The standards outlined in this tool are based on an analysis of the rights owed to unaccompanied migrant children by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s General Comments. They were further refined by reference to developing guidance in relevant EU directives and the EU Charter on Fundamental Rights. Reference to come of these provisions is made in relation to each particular suggested standard.

These standards are designed to assist the different actors to work more successfully together, to prevent duplication in legal and judicial proceedings and to build on current good practice in various courts and tribunals with experience of hearing cases involving unaccompanied migrant children. In addition, they aim to alert the actors to the obligations which particularly arise from the UN CRC and EU law and to ensure that unaccompanied migrant children can successfully rely on these rights and obligations.

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