‘No one gives you a chance to say what you are thinking’: finding space for children's agency in the UK asylum system

Abstract

Drawing on research undertaken with separated children seeking asylum in the UK, this paper explores the ways in which children's political identities and experiences have been conceptualised in procedures for determining who is -and is not -in need of protection under international refugee law. The paper focuses in particular on the experiences of separated children during the asylum interview. It is suggested that the conduct of the interview not only indicates a basic lack of humanity and care in engaging with the experiences of separated asylum-seeking children, but also a particular conceptualisation of 'childhood' that undermines the ability of children to fully articulate their experiences and to secure access to the protection to which they are entitled. The consequence of this approach is not only that separated asylum-seeking children are significantly less likely than adults to be granted refugee status, but that children who express political views and agency may not be considered to be children at all.

The needs and strengths of unaccompanied asylum‐seeking children and young people in Scotland

“…Previous research exploring the needs of unaccompanied minors has focused upon a broad range of health‐, medical‐, social‐ and welfare‐based requirements. The geographical focus of this work has included the UK (Hodes 2002; Kohli 2006a; Crawley 2010), Ireland (Christie 2003; Bushin & White 2010), various countries in Europe (Mai 2010) as well as the USA (Bhabha & Schmidt 2008). There was very little previous research about unaccompanied minors in Scotland, and the tendency of much work in the UK is to focus upon London to the exclusion of other places and experiences.…”

Challenging Barriers to Participation: Doing Research with Migrant Children and Young People

“…Substantial research with unaccompanied asylum seeking children has also been conducted to highlight their significant needs (Crawley, 2009;Rutter, 2003Rutter, , 2006Kohli, 2006) and campaign for policies and practice to address the injustices that unaccompanied minors suffer due to punitive laws, which deny them basic rights and reinforce their marginalisation. While the discourse of vulnerability has been adopted by some of these studies, in order to make the case stronger in arguing for more humanitarian treatment of children (Eastmond and Ascher, 2011), a new, emerging discourse has centred around migrant children's resilience even during extreme hardship, such as detention and deportation (Hess and Shandy, 2008;Watters, 2008).…”

Child Refugees and National Boundaries

“…Paradoxically, however, in the UK of the 2010s, children who express "excessive" agency may be considered not to be children at all (Crawley 2010).…”