IRIN Web Special on Separated Somali Children

Introduction

Once through the port of entry, the separated child moves into a new life. It is a challenge to the receiving country to treat these children with the specialised care they need, and fully respect their rights as a child, while at the same time establish exactly where they came from, how old they are, and what to do with them. Even official procedures designed to be humane can do little to alleviate the shock of arrival. The child is thrown precipitately into a foreign culture and language, often with extreme weather and environment change and, simultaneously, must take on adult-like responsibility for its own basic and complex needs. Some teenagers also arrive with very young siblings or relatives to look after.

In Europe, the legislation and institutions available to deal with the increased number of unaccompanied children generally appear to be inadequate to meet their unique and complex needs. Children also pose a special dilemma to the diaspora - families struggle to cope with even their most basic requirements. Many of the problems that arise come from the fact that unaccompanied children almost without exception have been burdened with a false identity by the smuggler. It puts them in conflict not only with the authorities and their guardians - but also with themselves. They have to live a lie. "I have seen many children living with false histories, and if they can tell their real story, in my experience, it is almost always worse than the false one," said psychologist Marie Hessle in Stockholm.

Receiving separated children

"The children are in a state of bewilderment, fear and confusion…they did not make the decision to leave their own country, they have not been given the right information; they want to go home," said one official working with newly arrived separated children. Somali children are in most cases later claimed by relatives who have been informed of their arrival, or given the authorities the name of a relative to contact.

In Sweden, unaccompanied minors are looked after in the children's unit at the Carlslund refugee centre. They see a psychologist, undergo a health examination, and are allocated a contact person to assist them through the asylum process. In Britain, the child is received at the port of entry by immigration officials, and then become the responsibility of the local authority.

But about one third of the children suffer such acute fear that they do not want to reply to questions asked by an interpreter, and are not in a position to take in information, according to staff at Carlslund. Some arrive seriously traumatized, the cause of which is not easy to identify - it may be due to their experience in the country of origin, in the family they have left, or with the smugglers. Staff at Carlslund said children who were severely traumatized had to have special care. "If necessary, we send them to a special psychiatric unit…Sometimes it is difficult to find a place to keep them, and they have to stay in a hospital."

The receiving country must try to establish critical information about the child, including origins and age, while respecting their rights as a child. However, many of the separated children will have been instructed to give different ages, identities and stories in the hope of disguising any links to the smuggler and facilitating the granting of asylum. Depending on the country they have arrived in, the children will receive a medical examination, be fingerprinted and photographed, and may be subjected to DNA testing and X-rays, as well as going through lengthy official interviews. In some countries, unaccompanied children may be detained. In a 1999 report on separated children arriving in Britain, Amnesty International said unaccompanied children were particularly vulnerable, where refugees in general posed a challenge to host communities. Of refugees, Amnesty said: "They arrive as packages of complex human rights issues, demanding that those rights which have been stripped from them are restored by the international community… When an unaccompanied refugee child seeks protection those challenges are magnified, not least because, having recognized the vulnerability of children in general, the law makes greater provision for their welfare."¹⁰ While processing and verifying claims for asylum, the host country must also deal with medical needs, mental and emotional disturbance, and provide shelter, food, advice and security. The result is often an imperfect system.

Procedures in the host country

A Save the Children report said in 2001 that a significant number of young separated refugees interviewed in the UK "had chaotic and disturbing experiences on arrival and received little or no support".¹¹ In Sweden, there has also been public criticism voiced over how the system treats unaccompanied children, with no clear delineation of responsibility between the immigration office and the social services. The lack of specialised care and personnel for unaccompanied minors is an issue of concern to social workers and psychologist working with separated children in Europe. "Staff might have the best of intentions and be very nice people, but they do not have the competence to deal with the sort of problems these children have… You have to be more than nice," one humanitarian observer said.

Official statistics on the numbers of unaccompanied children are poor, immigration officials acknowledge. "Many children show up, apply for asylum, start the process, then disappear", said one European immigration official. "We don't have the right to do much checking." Immigration officials told IRIN that one of the greatest concerns with Somali separated children was the fact that they appeared to be absorbed by the Somali community and were claimed by "relatives", while there was no real system - either through the immigration board or social services - to establish what the real relationship of the adult was to the child, or whether the home was suitable. In Sweden, one immigration official who had worked on Somali cases for more than a decade said she believed the intake of Somali separated children was "very organized…I can meet the same woman declaring herself to be a relative a number of times." But such officials say they remain in the dark as to who is organizing the movement of children, "we suspect it may be people here who set up a network."

When the child arrives, one of the first priorities of the host country is to try and find the parents. With some of the children, relatives proved equally keen to contact the parents so as to persuade them to take the child back, immigration officials said. While there is suspicion that some of the "relatives" are organizing child smuggling, there is also awareness on the part of the authorities that members of the diaspora are unwillingly burdened with responsibilities through the extended family. Over the last few years, there has been greater awareness of the pitfalls of taking on separated children, and in some cases, relatives help immigration officials contact the parents and persuade them to take the child back. Almost invariably, the child wants to return home immediately. However, some social workers and psychiatrists warn that this policy of return is controversial and may not be in the best interests of the child, who may return to a dangerous or abusive situation, or may face the wrath of the family.

Marie Hessle, a psychologist working with unaccompanied children in Sweden, says the process of arriving in a country and going through official bureaucracy is extremely stressful. "When they go for interview, they might be accused of lying. I've had to counsel young people because of that alone." She says the children have been coached and threatened to give a particular story. Once they are under scrutiny, it is very stressful for the child to give a false history, and then to live with it, she told IRIN.

[Marie Hessle, psychologist specialising in work with separated children in Sweden]

One of the likely issues of contention during the process is verifying the age of a young person; if they are 18 or older, they are not entitled to the special protection afforded to children. Social workers, immigration officials and psychologists say many of the unaccompanied minors claim to be younger than they are, in the belief they are more likely to get favourable treatment in the asylum process. Some children genuinely do not know which year they were born in; and a small number believe they are older than they actually are.

Humanitarian agencies and human rights organizations are concerned that attempts to accurately establish age by the authorities are likely to breach the basic human rights of the child. The use of X-rays is "inaccurate as well as potentially harmful", according to the UK Royal College of Paediatricians. The UK Refugee Council supports a holistic approach, using a process to assess the experiences, skills and needs of unaccompanied children, in order to make a judgment on the age range a child or young person is likely to fit into. The Refugee Council's adviser on unaccompanied minors also warns that young people may appear older because of the impact of extreme circumstances and events.¹²

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