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Unaccompanied children in Europe: issues of arrival,
stay and return

Recommendation 1969 (2011)1

1.       The
Parliamentary Assembly refers to its
Resolution 1810 (2011) on unaccompanied children in
Europe: issues of arrival, stay and return.

2.       It
recalls the important role that the Council of Europe has
played in rendering child rights and child protection more
visible in migration policy discussions around Europe, as well
as providing practical tools for addressing the situation of
unaccompanied children, in particular through developing life
projects for unaccompanied migrant minors (Committee of
Ministers Recommendation CM/Rec(2007)9), which is a unique
tool providing unaccompanied children with meaningful and
lasting solutions.

3.       The
Assembly considers that the Council of Europe should continue
to play a prominent role by helping to create a viable and
harmonised Europe-wide protection system for unaccompanied
children. In this respect, the Council of Europe should
closely co-operate with the European Commission on the
implementation of the European Union Action Plan on
Unaccompanied Minors and on further identification and closing
of protection gaps concerning this vulnerable group. The
Council of Europe should also work with other relevant
European Union institutions on harmonising data collection
systems and asylum procedures applicable to unaccompanied
children in Europe.

4.       In
light of the above, the Assembly invites the Committee of
Ministers to:

4.1.
take note of the Assembly’s recommendations to member states
set out in its above-mentioned resolution and urge member
states to comply with them;

4.2.
urge member states to comply with General Comment No. 6 by
the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, the
relevant guidelines adopted by the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR), UNICEF, Save
the Children, the Separate Children in Europe Programme
(SCEP) and other international organisations, and notably
with the UNHCR 2008 guidelines on determining the best
interests of the child, the UNHCR 2009 guidelines on child
asylum claims and the fourth version of the SCEP Statement
of Good Practices;

4.3.
instruct the relevant body within the Council of Europe to
set up a working group comprising government experts,
members of civil society, and representatives of relevant
international organisations and Council of Europe bodies to
examine further the 15 common principles, as presented in
Resolution 1810 (2011), with a view to elaborating
Council of Europe guiding principles on the protection of
unaccompanied children taking the format of a new
recommendation by the Committee of Ministers;

4.4.
fully integrate unaccompanied children-related issues into
the transversal project “Building Europe for and with
children” under its current strategy 2009–2011 and into any
future activities undertaken within the framework of this
programme; in particular, in this context, contribute to the
development of common guidelines on the assessment of the
best interests of the child, on the legal guardianship of
unaccompanied children, age assessment and on the
application of child-friendly justice in the context of
unaccompanied children;

4.5.
find resources for implementing life projects for
unaccompanied minors as an invaluable tool for finding
durable solutions for them; designate a single interlocutor
within the Council of Europe to ensure the co-ordination and
follow-up of the problem of unaccompanied children in all
Council of Europe member states and, in the context of
ongoing reform processes, ensure that the fate of
unaccompanied children is sufficiently taken into account by
future intergovernmental action of the Council of
Europe;

4.6.
encourage member states to submit projects to the Council of
Europe Development Bank with a view to funding or co-funding
life projects for unaccompanied children.

1 Assembly debate on 15 April
2011 (18th Sitting) (see Doc.
12539, report of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population, rapporteur: Mrs Reps, and Doc.
12558, opinion of the Social, Health and Family Affairs
Committee, rapporteur: Mrs Coleiro Preca). Text adopted by
the Assembly on 15 April 2011 (18th Sitting).

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