Since the beginning of the so called "migrant and refugee crisis", many European countries have been facing difficulties while trying to cope with the crisis and effectively respond to the needs of the most vulnerable groups affected. Two years ago, ChildHub organized a webinar on the experience of Germany, as one of the top destination countries. Click here to listen to the whole webinar and learn about the German system and some of the challenges they had been experiencing.
Two years after, ChildHub gathered a pool of relevant experts from two top destination countries and a transit country, aiming to revisit this topic and shed a light on how the process of accepting and integrating one of the most vulnerable groups - unaccompanied minors - has been functioning and evolving. Speakers from Germany, Sweden and Serbia will share their experience, discuss how systems in their countries function, share some of the good practices identified in the process as well as challenges still to be addressed.
The European Migration Network is currently producing a study on unaccompanied minors following status determination. Mr Jonas Hols from the Swedish Migration Agency will draw on the national Swedish contribution to that study and in particular focus on the situation in Sweden after 2015, when 35,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum. He will discuss recent changes to policy and practice, reception (care / accommodation arrangements) conditions, integration of unaccompanied minors and unaccompanied minors who disappear, as well as some of the challenges and good practices identified in the study.
During her presentation, Ms Nadja Lang will share her experience as a social pedagogue working on a daily basis with UAM in Berlin, providing them support and guidance from the moment they arrive to Berlin onwards, monitoring their progress and integration process. Ms Lang will provide a short description on unaccompanied minors arriving in the youth welfare system in Berlin, challenges she experienced during her work, challenges those young people face and discuss how this could be addressed in the future.
Ms Anja Stefanović and Mr Bogdan Krasić from Belgrade Center for Human Rights will focus on the position of unaccompanied and separated refugee children in the Republic of Serbia, the challenges that Serbian system faces regarding additional protection that unaccompanied children should be able to enjoy and gaps within it.
The webinar will be of interest for both practitioners in public and civil sector who deal with unaccompanied minors, professionals who work with children on the move, as well as academics who are interested in migration, influence of the situation in the Western Balkan route on the flow of migrants towards Western Europe and comparative analyses of refugee policies.