Being a Child on the Move: Representation in the Asylum Process

In this blog post, Dominika Kuna analyses the experiences of children fleeing conflict and seeking asylum in Europe. She argues that there is a significant disconnect between children’s rights “on paper” and their lived reality. In doing so, she draws on the experiences of children fleeing war in Ukraine. She argues for an approach which places Article 12 UNCRC, the right of children to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings affecting them, as a cornerstone.

“No matter where they are from and why they and their families move, children in migration contexts are children first and foremost, with the same human rights as all children – rights that do not cease at borders” (Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants).

Children’s rights are not frozen in time. They evolve with the world. Behind every individual story lies a global crisis of staggering proportions: there is between 37 and 42 million children who are also migrants. Migration rules must be flexible and always put the safety and well-being of children and young people first. We also need a fundamental shift in how society views child refugees. Public debate often swings between two harmful extremes: viewing migrant children as burdens or threats, and on the other hand, treating them as helpless objects of pity. Both approaches ignore children’s actual capacity to speak up, express their needs, and shape their own lives.

Previous blog posts, such as young person Tahera’s moving piece on growing up in Afghanistan, along with Dr. Erika Jiménez’s response, showed what children in conflict zones go through. In this post, I will analyse the experiences of children who have fled conflict and come to seek asylum in Europe

Legal Framework

Protecting child migrants and asylum seekers in Europe relies on three connected, complementary layers of law spanning global, Council of Europe, and EU governance:

Global Level: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) guarantees that the child’s best interests must be a primary consideration in all actions concerning children (Art. 3), provides special protection and assistance for refugee children (Art. 22), safeguards against family separation (Arts. 9 and 10), and guarantees access to healthcare and education without discrimination (Arts. 2, 24, and 28). States Parties are strictly obligated under Article 2(1) to respect and ensure these rights for every child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind; these protections cannot be derogated from or suspended. This protection is functionally strengthened by the Third Optional Protocol to the CRC (OPIC, 2011), [PKJ1] which establishes an individual communications procedure allowing children or their legal representatives to submit direct complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child when domestic remedies fail or are unduly prolonged. Additionally, the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) (GCM, 2018, Objective 7) reinforces international commitments by placing children’s rights and their best interests firmly at the core of national migration policies.

Council of Europe Level: Under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR, 1950), child migrants and asylum seekers are protected against unlawful detention and degrading living conditions (Art. 3 – prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment). Furthermore, Article 8 of the ECHR strictly safeguards their right to respect for family life, placing clear legal bounds on state powers regarding deportation and family separation.

European Union Level (EU Charter & Migration Pact): Within the EU legal framework (including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, Art. 24, and the EU Migration Pact), Member States are subject to concrete, time-bound guarantees. These require Member States to integrate child asylum seekers into the national school system within two months of filing an asylum application and mandate the swift appointment of an independent legal representative for unaccompanied minors.

Lived Reality

To truly evaluate these legal guarantees, we must examine how these laws function in daily practice, exposing a significant disconnect between “rights on paper” and the lived reality of displaced children.

Contributing to this disconnect is a public debate across Europe which frequently swings between two harmful and reductionist extremes: viewing children as a burden and viewing children as objects of pity. Public and administrative discourse often frames child migrants as administrative complications, financial liabilities on local social infrastructure, or potential border security concerns. This framing prioritizes bureaucracy, rigid procedural deadlines, and border management over child welfare and human dignity. Conversely, media and humanitarian portrayals frequently reduce child refugees to helpless, passive victims needing charity. While well-intentioned, this perspective completely ignores children’s agency, their capacity to express their needs, and their legal right to participate in shaping their own futures.

The human impact of the disconnect between rights on paper and lived reality is vividly demonstrated in crises, such as the full-scale war in Ukraine, which has displaced millions of children across Europe. Beyond the physical loss of home, children have experienced severe emotional and social isolation in their host societies “In my class, I exist alone, like a cat.” These are the words of a 12-year-old girl from Ukraine who currently lives in Poland.

This experience reflects broader challenges documented among Ukrainian refugee children in Poland. Research by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), CARE International, and Save the Children has identified language barriers, bullying, discrimination, and difficulties establishing friendships as significant obstacles to social and educational integration. Moreover, many Ukrainian children have remained outside the Polish education system, with some continuing their studies exclusively online in Ukraine, thereby limiting opportunities for face-to-face interaction with their peers. A 2024 IRC report also highlighted the psychological distress associated with displacement, disrupted family relationships, and inadequate social support. These findings illustrate how, despite formal commitments to children’s rights, including the rights to education, protection, and social inclusion, refugee children may continue to face substantial barriers to exercising those rights in their everyday lives.

This disconnect becomes that more consequential when children encounter public institutions. In European migration systems, children can be treated primarily as administrative or migration-management problems rather than as children with independent rights and needs. The European Court of Human Rights illustrated this problem in Rahimi v. Greece, concerning a 15-year-old unaccompanied Afghan child who was detained in a facility for adults and subsequently released without adequate arrangements for his care. The case demonstrates how a child’s vulnerability can disappear behind an administrative classification: the child is processed first as an irregular migrant and only subsequently, if at all, as a child requiring protection. By way of contrast, in Sahin v. Germany, concerning contact between a father and his young daughter, the domestic authorities considered that hearing from the five-year-old child could be psychologically harmful. The European Court of Human Rights nevertheless emphasised the importance of the child’s participation and considering ways of hearing the child that were appropriate to her age and circumstances. The case therefore illustrates the difference between protecting a child from a procedure and enabling a child to participate in a procedure in a safe and age-appropriate manner.

The Council of Europe promotes the idea of child-friendly justice. This means that justice should be accessible, understandable, quick and adapted to children’s needs. Children should also have the opportunity to understand the proceedings and participate in them. These principles apply not only to criminal cases, but also to civil and administrative procedures. There are also concrete examples of how these principles can be translated into institutional practice. The FRA’s research shows that children’s participation is hindered where information is delivered in language they cannot understand, where procedures are intimidating, or where professionals fail to explain what will happen and why. In practice, children often face barriers because information is difficult to understand, procedures are intimidating, or adults do not explain what is happening. Conversely, child-friendly procedures aim to solve these problems by adapting communication, legal support and the environment to the child’s age and needs. They seek to adapt communication, representation and the physical environment to the child’s age and circumstances. The Council of Europe’s current Child-friendly Justice Project, for example, is developing and implementing assessment tools to identify gaps in national systems, including in Poland, Belgium and Slovenia.

These challenges are even greater for children who migrate without their parents. Unaccompanied or separated children may have difficulties accessing education, healthcare, accommodation, legal assistance or justice, especially when they do not have a legal guardian or representative. As the Rahimi case shows, having rights in law does not always mean being able to exercise them in practice The problem also becomes more serious during institutional or rule-of-law crises, when administrative delays and a lack of specialised support can make existing rights difficult to access.

Ultimately, the key question is not only whether children have rights, but whether institutions enable them to use those rights. Sadly, official systems often care more about paperwork, rules, and border control than about young people. When children become just names on a form, their voices get lost. Promises on paper do not protect anyone in real life.

Bridging the Gap

We must bridge the gap between rules on paper and daily reality. Children seeking safety should not just be felt sorry for – they deserve to be listened to and respected as active young people who have their own rights. Every child has the right to protection, care and the support and services they need to thrive.

A cornerstone of this shift is Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which legally guarantees every child the right to express their views freely and be heard in all judicial and administrative proceedings affecting their lives. Children seeking safety should not just be felt sorry for – they deserve to be listened to, given a direct voice as required by Article 12, and respected as active young people who have their own enforceable rights. Even though international and European laws promise refugee children healthcare, housing, schooling, and family protection, those rules don’t enforce themselves. In real life, children only get the help they need if local government offices and courts are working properly and fairly. During a rule of law crisis, even the clearest constitutional and legal rights technically remain on the books, but they lose all real power due to bureaucratic delays, administrative roadblocks, or the loss of independent courts.

The importance of the principle of the Article 12 CRC in the context of judicial or administrative proceedings is reflected in Article 12(2) of the CRC which specifically states that the child must be provided with the opportunity to be heard in these contexts, either directly or through a representative or an appropriate body, in manner consistent with the procedural rules of national laws. Then, at every stage of child’s contact with the justice system, the lawyer/legal services practitioner should ensure that child is offered appropriate services without discrimination. Each client must be handled with sensitivity and un understanding of the issues that children, or groups of children, may face due to their sex, age, race, disability and so on. Here, the right to non-discrimination is of particular relevance for legal practitioners when dealing with vulnerable groups of children in contact with the law, where special measures may need to be taken to ensure that their rights are equally upheld.  For example, children who speak a minority language may require the use of an interpreter during legal proceedings. All forms of deprivation of liberty can negative consequences for a child’s survival and development. Legal professionals should ensure, to the best of their abilities, that children are deprived of their liberty only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate time (Article 37(b) CRC; Article 14(3)(d) ICCPR).

To put this into practice, justice proceedings must be specifically adapted for children and they must receive adequate information about the process, the choices they have and the possible consequences of these choices. Legal professionals need to asses a child’s age and maturity and the relative wight that should be given to that child’s views, opinions, concerns and testimony.   

In other words, without professional legal representation, children seeking asylum are left extremely vulnerable during complex legal procedures. When administrative authorities stall, delay decisions, or ignore court rulings, children are forced to carry adult burdens—enduring housing insecurity, uncertain legal statuses, and the loss of their family’s safety net. In these moments, regulation as “paper rights” completely fall apart. So that, only lawyers/legal services practitioners should take into account the child’s views and give them due weight so that the child plays a significant role in determining what is in their best interests.

True solidarity means treating child asylum seekers not as passive recipients of charity, but as active rights-holders with inherent dignity. States have obligations to respect, protect and fulfil children’s rights, just as they do other human rights.  Legal systems must create real opportunities for children to participate and have their voices directly heard in all proceedings that affect their future.

Bad Practices to Eliminate	Good Practices & Legal Standards
• Administrative stalling and excessive decision delays. • Detention of children or placement in substandard, unsafe facilities. • Proceeding without legal representation or appointed guardians. • Imposing bureaucratic burdens during rule-of-law crises. • Treating children as passive subjects without seeking their views.	• Providing qualified interpreters specialized in minority languages. • Mandating independent legal representation to give weight to child views. • Conducting age- and maturity-sensitive procedural assessments. • Restricting deprivation of liberty strictly to a measure of last resort (CRC Art. 37(b); ICCPR Art. 14(3)(d)). • Ensuring access to direct, child-friendly legal information and options.

Where to find help?

Closing the gap between “paper rights” and daily reality requires not only systemic legal reform, but also immediate, accessible protection on the ground. Below are key free and confidential helplines providing support to children, young people, and families:

116 111 – Pan-European Child Helpline: A free and anonymous hotline available across the European Union.

116 000 – Hotline for Missing Children (Missing Children Europe): A free pan-European helpline offering support in cases of missing children, runaways, and children separated from their families during migration.

Child Helpline International: A global network uniting over 170 helplines in more than 140 countries, assisting children regardless of their legal status or origin.

Find a Helpline: An international, easily accessible directory of free and confidential support helplines for children and young people worldwide.

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