The new report “Without papers, there’s no life: Legal barriers in access to protection for unaccompanied children in Greece ”, is based on the joint work of the Greek Council for Refugees with Save the Children International.
The new report, based on in-depth interviews with 12 unaccompanied children and an overview of the Greek asylum system details how:
- most unaccompanied children in Greece rely on the asylum system to regularize their stay, although this procedure is unfit for children and most of them are rejected
- this situation adds to their vulnerability, as they live in fear and distress and are, thus, vulnerable to exploitation and abuse
and advocates for:
- the adoption of a special residence permit for all unaccompanied children, just because they are children, lone and on the move, as almost half of the EU Member States have already done and the
- amendment of the existing procedure to grant humanitarian residence permit to unaccompanied children, adapted to the reality of lone children on the move
- age-appropriate free legal aid and application in practice of a guardianship system would help reduce the risks to unaccompanied children
