Unaccompanied migrant children: a travesty of EU values

In the spring of 2020, Greece found itself hosting over 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children – more than half of whom were living in precarious environments, including the infamous island ‘hotspots’. Despite a handful of EU countries pledging to relocate a number of those children, progress remains slow. With some of Europe’s most vulnerable people living in such unsafe conditions, states must urgently address the fact that these unaccompanied minors are – first and foremost – children who are entitled to special protection under international law. This Strategic Conversation with Afshan Khan, UNICEF’s Special Coordinator for the Refugee and Migrant Response in Europe, will be an opportunity to identify protection gaps and suggest new approaches to supporting and upholding the rights of unaccompanied minors.

This new Strategic Conversations series invites key policymakers to share their views on a range of important and strategically relevant issues through interviews with senior thinkers on the Friends of Europe team.

Follow the conversation online here or via our Facebook page.

Related content:

• “COVID-19 spotlighted European migrants’ vital role; the EU must tell their story” by Shada Islam
• “The politics of migration in a (post) COVID-19 world” by Heaven Crawley
• “In these challenging times, let’s not forget the most vulnerable communities” by Niki Papadogiannakis

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