[Europe] Europe needs to realise the impact of its policies on child migrants

EU, national, and local policies are designed to encourage refugee and migrant children to become invisible; they push them away from legal channels of migration and into the hands of traffickers and smugglers, and this must change, says Syed Hasain, cultural mediator and refugee rights activist from the Network Refugee Voices in an interview for Newsbook.

Hasain argues that policies should focus on providing adequate information and a safe path for migrant children to decide where and how to seek asylum. According to him, refugee and migrant children do not have sufficient information and often do not trust authorities. Instead, they rely on the advice of traffickers and smugglers, making them only more vulnerable. The issue of trust is very important, and the relevant authorities should put more effort into build trust with these children in order to protect them. Hasain recalled a situation where he helped a 14-year-old boy in an emergency and explained to him that hospital staff will not identify a minor, but when the police come, they will; ‘They are doing different things, taking different actions. It’s destructive to the trust we build with the unaccompanied minors’ explained Hasain.