Avenue de l'Europe
For a long time, the specific situation and challenges faced by young refugees has naturally been on the agenda of the Youth sector. It is currently focused on the specific needs of refugees in transition to adulthood, based on the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers CM/Rec(2019)4 on Supporting Young Refugees in Transition to Adulthood
17-19 April 2023, European Youth Centre Strasbourg
This meeting was designed to prepare a set of policy guidelines to support refugees in transition to adulthood. Over the course of two days, a group of experts from various Council of Europe programmes and departments and other organisations met to discuss key challenges facing young refugees and asylum seekers in transition, and to identify policy changes needed in order to address these challenges.
The study (conducted by a consultant under the joint supervision and funding of the UNHCR Representation to the European Institutions in Strasbourg and the Council of Europe's Youth Department) aims at collecting data and examples about practices in Council of Europe Member States concerning the situation of unaccompanied and separated asylum seeking children (UASASC) when they reach the age of majority, and more specifically how four of these States (namely Austria, France, Hungary and Sweden) address the challenges faced by this category as a result of this critical change of legal regime.
The research focused in particular on the difficulties faced by young unaccompanied and separated asylum seekers in the asylum procedure and the reception system after losing the specific guarantees they enjoyed as Unaccompanied and Separated Children (UASC).
However, the field research also gathered some data and testimonies about young unaccompanied and separated refugees and subsidiary protection beneficiaries turning 18.
The seminar “What Rights and Responsibilities at age eighteen?” held in November 2015 was co-organised by the Youth Department of the Council of Europe and the UNHCR Representation to Central Europe. It brought together 25 participants from Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia including young refugees, representatives of state agencies, national civil society organisations and international networks, locally based service organisations for young asylum-seekers and refugees and the Council of Europe and the UNHCR. The seminar focused only on the situation in the above-mentioned eight countries in Central Europe.
The regional seminar aimed to develop inter-sectorial cooperation between State Agencies, NGO’s, young refugees and asylum-seekers from eight Central European countries to support Unaccompanied and separated Asylum seeking or Refugee Children (USASRC) in transition to adulthood.
Read the report of the seminar: “What Rights and Responsibilities at age eighteen?” >>