Lost in Migration

By M. Buddenbaum and S. E. Rap.

Working together to protect children from disappearances, from European priorities to local realities. Challenges and progress in implementing the European Commission Communication on the Protection of Children in Migration: Providing effective protection and enhancing integration at local level. Since 2015 and the increase of migrants’ and refugees’ arrivals in Europe, women and children on the move outnumber adult men. UNICEF has estimated that 5.4 million migrant children live in Europe. In 2017, 32,000 children arrived in Greece, Italy, Spain and Bulgaria, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). At least 54% of them were unaccompanied or separated from their parents. Hundreds of children are held in immigration detention throughout Europe, although exact numbers are lacking. Missing Children Europe and the Maltese President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society found that the lack of efficient protection systems at the local level and the limited use of solidarity mechanisms among EU member states have increasingly exposed children to violence, exploitation and abuse. Europol noted that at least 10,000 unaccompanied children went missing in 2015 and national reports prove that children have continued to go missing due to poor conditions in some reception centres, lack of information on their rights and potential remedies, slow and complex procedures for protection, lack of training for professionals in contact with children and lack of coordination at national and cross-border level.

Leiden: University of Leiden; Missing Children Europe, 2018. 72p.