Challenging concepts of the ‘child’ in asylum and immigration law: the example of the EU

Drywood, Eleanor

doi:10.1080/09649069.2010.520524

Cited by 9 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…12). However, children in families are generally not heard about their own asylum motives (Drywood, 2010; Lidén & Rusten, 2007). For example, in the Netherlands, accompanied children from the age of 15 are interviewed on their asylum request, while unaccompanied children from the age of 6 are heard.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Keys: A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators for Refugee Children’s Disclosure of Their Life Stories

Zijlstra

Post

et al. 2018

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The systematic review presented in this article aims to reveal what supports and hampers refugee children in telling their, often traumatic, life stories. This is important to ensure that migration decisions are based on reliable information about the children's needs for protection. A systematic review was conducted in academic journals, collecting all available scientific knowledge about the disclosure of life stories by refugee minors in the context of social work, guardianship, foster care, asylum procedures, mental health assessment, and therapeutic settings. The resulting 39 studies were thoroughly reviewed with reference to what factors aided or hampered the refugee children's disclosure of their life stories. The main barriers to disclosure were feelings of mistrust and self-protection from the side of the child and disrespect from the side of the host community. The facilitators for disclosing life stories were a positive and respectful attitude of the interviewer, taking time to build trust, using nonverbal methods, providing agency to the children, and involving trained interpreters. Social workers, mentors, and guardians should have time to build trust and to help a young refugee in revealing the life story before the minor is heard by the migration authorities. The lack of knowledge on how refugee children can be helped to disclose their experiences is a great concern because the decision in the migration procedure is based on the story the child is able to disclose.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Finding Keys: A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators for Refugee Children’s Disclosure of Their Life Stories

Zijlstra

Post

et al. 2018

Trauma, Violence, & Abuse

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…While several studies emphasised that the sorting of different categories of migrants are intrinsic to EURODAC, distinguishing between, for instance, asylum seekers and irregular migrants, a broader take on heterogeneity was surprisingly absent in the literature. Age was identified in some category B publications, for instance one that observed how EURODAC affects older children in migration processes (Drywood, 2010). We believe that research that explored differences in terms of gender, able-bodiness, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, and nationality would generate new and important knowledge to the field.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Border Reconfiguration, Migration Governance, and Fundamental Rights: A Scoping Review of EURODAC as a Research Object

Bredström

Krifors

Mešić

2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article scrutinises the European Asylum Dactyloscopy Database (EURODAC) as a research object for social science. EURODAC serves as an important part of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) infrastructure by registering dig‐ italised fingerprints of asylum seekers, which facilitates the allocation of responsibility following the Dublin Regulation. In this article, we explore the role of EURODAC from its implementation in 2003 until April 2021 through a scoping review that maps and analyses existing social science research in the field. In total, 254 scholarly publications—identified in Scopus, Academic Search Complete, and Web of Science—were reviewed. The article seeks to answer three research questions: What is the accumulated knowledge within social science research on EURODAC? What gaps and trends exist in this research? What are the possible implications of this knowledge, gaps, and trends for other areas of the CEAS such as asylum evaluations and reception of asylum seekers? Based on a qualitative thematic analysis, our review shows that research on EURODAC can be divided into three broad categories: research that focuses on the reconfiguration of borders; research that focuses on migration governance and resistance; and research that emphasises fundamental rights and discrimination. In our final discussion, we highlight the lack of ethnographic studies, of gender and intersectional perspectives, and of in‐depth studies on national legal frameworks including asylum evaluations and reception practices across the EU. The article concludes that social science needs to address the socio‐political underpinnings of EURODAC and acknowledges its centrality to all areas of the CEAS.

show abstract

“…Countries apply different age limits with regard to the legal capacity of children to apply for asylum and the age from which children are interviewed by the immigration authorities. For example, age thresholds have been used to control migration flows by limiting the rights of older children in asylum legislation and family reunification procedures (Drywood, 2010). In a number of EU member states specific age limits are laid down for interviewing children in asylum procedures, ranging from 6 to 18 years.…”

Section: Interviewing Refugee Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Can my mother come?” Asylum interviews with unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum in the Netherlands

Rap

2023

Front. Hum. Dyn.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionThe UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) accords children the right to give their views on all important decisions in their life (art.12 CRC). In the past decades increased awareness has risen among professionals who work with children in judicial and administrative proceedings, to hear their voices. The key question guiding this research was whether refugee children have the possibility to meaningfully participate in asylum proceedings, as required by international children's rights law and standards? Asylum application procedures are highly complex administrative procedures, that are often not adapted to the capacities and level of maturity of children. Recent studies suggest that the right to participation and information is insufficiently safeguarded for children involved in asylum procedures. Unaccompanied children seeking asylum as young as 6 years of age have to go through the asylum procedure in the Netherlands. Efforts have been put in making this procedure more child-friendly, by designing a child-friendly interview room and training immigration officers. The aim of this study was to explore to what extent the immigration authority takes into account children's voice, age and development, in line with international children's rights.MethodsObservations have been conducted of first instance asylum application interviews with children held by immigration officers. In total 13 interviews with children aged 7–11 have been observed, that were held between 2012 and 2019.ResultsThe results show that child-friendly conversation techniques and tools are used to some extent, however, immigration officers should be trained more extensively in order to enhance the effective participation of young children.DiscussionIt is concluded that interviews with children could be improved by giving children more information and using techniques to communicate with young children. In order to truly hear the child's voice the interviews should be better adapted to the age and level of development of unaccompanied children.

show abstract

Challenging concepts of the ‘child’ in asylum and immigration law: the example of the EU

Cited by 9 publications

References 10 publications

Finding Keys: A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators for Refugee Children’s Disclosure of Their Life Stories

Finding Keys: A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators for Refugee Children’s Disclosure of Their Life Stories

Border Reconfiguration, Migration Governance, and Fundamental Rights: A Scoping Review of EURODAC as a Research Object

“Can my mother come?” Asylum interviews with unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum in the Netherlands

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About