What is an "unaccompanied minor"?

An unaccompanied minor (UM) previously referred to in France as mineur isolé étranger (MIE) is a child under 18, of foreign nationality, who has arrived on French soil without being accompanied by one of their legal guardians or a legal representative.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ratified by France, stipulates in its article 20 that: “A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State, including children seeking asylum, refugees or migrants, without consideration of their nationality, immigration status or statelessness”. UM arriving in our country are thus entitled to the same protection as any other child. 

In 2011, according to the Ministry of the Interior, the country counted 6,016 UM (8,000 according to non-profit sources). In 2019, according to figures from the Ministry of Justice (Unaccompanied Minors mission), there were 16,760 (cf. 17,022 in 2018, 14,908 in 2017 and 8,054 in 2016). In 2020, doubtless due to the Covid pandemic, the number fell to 9,524.

On December 31st 2019, 31,009 UM had been taken into care by French regional councils. In view of the figures published by the French Department of Research, Studies, Evaluation and Statistics (DREES), 8.4% of social assistance measures for children in 2019 concerned unaccompanied minors and 15.8% of minors taken in by child welfare services were unaccompanied minors.

In 2019: 95.5% of UM were boys (i.e. 16,009) and 4.5% girls (751). In 2020 those numbers were distributed as follows: 94.2% boys (i.e. 8,968) and 5.8 % girls (i.e. 556).

In 2019, children aged 15 to 17 represented 90% of UM. They came from Guinea (24.67%), Mali (23.29%), Côté d’Ivoire (13.16%), Bangladesh (4.83%), Algeria (4.11%). The three West African countries represented 61% of the flow of minors handled by the unaccompanied minors mission (45.45% in 2020) and UM coming from North Africa 10.57% (18.4% in 2020 of the total number of young people recognised as UM, i.e. 1,749).

These minors have sometimes crossed several countries in atrocious conditions. Some of them have been victims of prostitution, exploitation or have been used as tools for legal or economic purposes. And their families have had to pay, or are indebted to, networks of people smugglers.

In 2001, a study by the Department of Populations and Migrations divided these children into several groups: those who were "exiled"; those who were "commissioned", sent abroad for their education or to work there and send the money earned back to the family; the "exploited"; the "escapees" and the "wanderers", in other words street children, uneducated and sleeping in shanty towns.

According to figures from the Office Français de Protection des Réfugiés et Apatrides (OFPRA),  requests for international protection submitted by UM have been increasing consistently for the past five years (+176.56% between 2014 and 2019). 755 of them requested asylum in 2019 [634 for the year 2020 for 387 admissions]), which turns out to be a small proportion compared to the number of UM entrusted to child welfare services (31,009).

Besides the question of coordinating and simplifying policies for caring for UM and ways of documenting them, two subjects keep returning to the debate table: how to relieve pressure on the budgets of the departments taking in the majority of UM and how to avoid moving from a policy of child protection to a simple, strict policy of managing migration flow? The Defender of Rights warns: “the institution notes that unaccompanied minors are too often suspected of fraud, viewed as illegal foreigners, like adults, or even as delinquents, rather than being viewed as children in danger. (…) The idea has gradually taken root that these minors should be considered as migrants, and therefore treated as such, and not as children that the law obliges us to consider with special attention. Alongside these legislative changes, the way society views these minors has evolved in step with a variety of events. In turn, they are objects of suspicion – about their age, their trajectory, their history and the reasons for their arrival – or admiration when some of them make their way into the media spotlight, held up as a model of success. Any person claiming to be an unaccompanied minor intercepted at land borders should be immediately reported to the relevant child welfare services, provided with shelter in conditions appropriate to their status as a presumed minor, and their status should be evaluated in compliance with current legislation”.

In September 2021, a senate report on unaccompanied minors pointed out a worrying increase in delinquency on the part of young street people (in other words not under the care of child welfare services), involving crimes that were increasingly numerous, serious and violent. Could that be an effect of the “legislative changes” indicated by the Defender of Rights?

Mustapha Harzoune, 2022