Review of Cases in Which Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Minors Absconded During 2002

Development Division28th October, 2003N-11-2003-18696

Anna Wessel

Review of cases in which unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors absconded during 2002.

Among those who seek asylum in Sweden are children and young people who arrive in this country without an accompanying legal guardian – they are known as unaccompanied minors. Sometimes they travel to Sweden with relatives, sometimes with the aid of smugglers. Sometimes they make their way to Sweden alone and unassisted. There are unaccompanied minors who already have relatives in Sweden, and there are those who have no contact with Sweden at all. There are unaccompanied minors who bear with them terrible memories of the events they have witnessed. However, regardless of their individual circumstances, all these children and young people are vulnerable simply because they are alone in a strange country without a guardian – a guardian who can ensure that they receive all the care and protection they need.

In 2002, 550 unaccompanied minors came to Sweden. The overwhelming majority (2/3) were boys, and most (2/3) were 16 or older when they arrived. 85 of the unaccompanied minors were reunited with one of their guardians shortly after their arrival in Sweden.

The Migration Board is responsible for assessing the right of these unaccompanied minors to stay in Sweden and for offering them, like other asylum seekers, somewhere to live. The social welfare services are responsible for ensuring that all children and young people receive the care they need in the absence of parents who can provide them with care and protection, and this applies in equal measure to unaccompanied minors who come to Sweden to seek asylum. When they finally reach Sweden, these unaccompanied minors are in immediate need of care and protection.

While their application is being processed, some of the children (45%) reside at one of the Migration Board’s Children and Youth Divisions, while others (55%) live with relatives, friends or acquaintances.

Over the past few years, the Migration Board has striven to ensure that all unaccompanied minors are taken care of in a manner such as to guarantee them all the protection they need. Much of the work has focussed on improving the standard of the Children and Youth Divisions run by the Migration Board and on strengthening cooperation between the Migration Board and the social welfare services responsible for investigating the children’s need of care and deciding on where the children are to live while their applications are being processed.

Some of the children abscond from the Migration Board’s reception system, whether they have been living at one of the Board’s Children and Youth Divisions or with relatives or acquaintances. Last winter the media reported extensively on the Migration Board, accusing it of irresponsibility towards the young people who had been inducted into the refugee reception system. Although the question of what had happened to the unaccompanied minors was raised by the media on numerous occasions, the Migration Board found it difficult to provide any satisfactory answer.

The former director-general of the Migration Board has therefore asked us to draw up a report summarising what is known about where these children and young people actually went.

What have we found?

The investigation took into account only minors who had been registered as having absconded during the course of 2002. After discounting registration errors, we found that 103 young people absconded from reception operations in 2002, most of them aged from 15 to 18. Their reasons for absconding appear to vary, and surprisingly many absconded before receiving the Board’s decision on their asylum application.

Boy from Belarus, aged 16, seeking asylum. When he came to the department where he was to perform a language test, it appeared that he spoke almost perfect Swedish. His explanation: “I find learning easy”. The boy claimed that he had grown up in an orphanage and that his background was tragic in the extreme. During his period as an asylum seeker in Sweden, he became involved with criminal gangs. During his stay in Sweden, it emerged that he had applied for asylum in Norway together with his mother, father and siblings and that the entire family had thereafter sought asylum in Germany. The boy absconded after a friend had been deported from Sweden following a court order.

Most of those who abscond are boys, although this is hardly surprising since boys make up the majority of unaccompanied minors who seek asylum in Sweden. However, girls, too, abscond.

Girl from Serbia/Montenegro who came to Sweden with her husband and brother-in-law. The girl appeared to have been beaten black and blue when she arrived. Her husband was adult. The girl was pregnant and in conjunction with the asylum investigation she stated that she was an orphan. The couple were denied asylum, as was confirmed by the Aliens Appeals Board. The girl and the new-born child were referred to the psychiatric services, the girl being treated on the basis of the events whose memory she bore with her, such as her separation from and the loss of her parents. During a training trip to Belgrade, the officer in charge of her case sought out the address quoted by the girl during investigation of her case. Her mother, father and two brothers were found to be living at the address. The father was out at work. The girl absconded from the young people’s psychiatric services before she was informed that the case worker had visited her parents in Belgrade.

Where do the young absconders come from?

Unaccompanied children who seek asylum in Sweden come from all four corners of the globe. During 2002, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia/Montenegro, Afghanistan and Russia were the five most common countries, which are also those that tend to have the greatest number of young absconders apart from Moldavia, whose youthful asylum seekers are, relatively speaking, even more likely to abscond.

Does it ever happen that the young absconders come back?

Of the young people who absconded, 20% were re-registered. Some of them were absent for only a few days. Sometimes it happened that they had been refused permission to visit a friend but had departed on a visit nevertheless. Others had been away for several months and then decided to return. In such cases, we seldom know what the children might have experienced during the period they were away.

Two siblings, 10 and 12 years old, applied for asylum in September, 2001, and were admitted to the Sagåsen Children and Youth Division. A person who claimed to be the children’s uncle came to fetch them. The purported uncle was also an asylum seeker. The local authorities were immediately informed of the need both to appoint an advocate to safeguard the children’s interests and to carry out a speedy investigation into the case of the purported uncle. In January, 2002, the children were reported as having absconded, since the man had not withdrawn the children’s daily allowance for them, and the social welfare services of the municipality of residence were notified accordingly. The social welfare services had not yet investigated the man’s suitability as a provider for the children. The matter was reported to the police. In May of that year the children returned. They were once again found with the man, who was now living at a refugee centre in another region. A further report was sent to the social welfare services of the municipality of residence to the effect that the children were living in the municipality and that an investigation was needed into the children and the way they were living. The man stated that the children had been living with a Swedish woman during the months when they had been away. He did not give the name of the woman, and nothing is known of what happened to the children during the period they were away. The children’s files contained no documentation showing that the man with whom the children were living was in fact their uncle. Certain annotations suggested, however, that the man had been unreliable in his care of the children. The social welfare services were contacted once again.

The above tale clearly illustrates the necessity of keeping cooperation between the Migration Board, the police authorities and the social welfare services as close and as smoothly running as possible.

Have the young people sought asylum elsewhere before their arrival in Sweden?

One third of the youthful absconders had sought asylum in another “Dublin nation” before they came to Sweden.

A boy from Ukraine, born 1985, sought asylum in Sweden in April, 2002. The boy was suspected of theft during the time he lived at the Children and Youth Division. In July of the same year, Germany agreed to take over consideration of the boy’s case since he had previously sought asylum there under another identity. The boy and his lawyer agreed to his transferral to Germany. The boy stated that the identity he had given in Germany was correct. At the beginning of October, the boy absconded from the Children and Youth Division.

Do we know where the children went and what happened to them?

According to reliable data, 17 of the young people either sought asylum in another country after they were registered as absconders in Sweden or had actually already been awarded a residence permit in another EU country.

A boy of 15 sought asylum in November, 2001. During his asylum period he lived at the Carlslund Children and Youth Division. He seemed anxious and restless for the entire period he spent at Carlslund, often getting into fights with the staff and other young people. During a talk with his case worker in February, 2002, he admitted to having previously sought asylum in Denmark under a another name. The case worker contacted the Danish authorities, who revealed that the boy was a holder of a Danish residence permit and that he had been registered as having absconded from Denmark. The boy stated that he wished to return to Denmark. The next morning he had disappeared from Carlslund. Late that same day, the Danish authorities notified us that he had resurfaced in Denmark.

There are a couple of cases in which we have either received confirmation that the young people have departed from Sweden or there are at least very strong indications that they have left the country.

A girl from Somalia, aged 15, applied for asylum in March, 2002. During her asylum period, the girl lived with relatives in the Stockholm area. At the end of August, when contacted, the family with whom the girl was living stated that the girl had probably gone to live with an aunt in Germany. Both the social welfare services and the police were contacted immediately. Six days later the girl was located by the police in Norway.

For a further 43 young people, we have information or some sort of suggestion as to where they may have gone after their period of residence in Sweden.

Boy, aged 17, from Iraq, who applied for asylum in February, 2002. In June, after failing to appear at supper one day, he was reported as having absconded. His roommate stated that he had said he intended to go to Germany, where he had a brother.

In some cases, a close relative informed us that the boy or girl had either gone back home or had moved on to relatives in some other country.

Boy, aged 17, from Kosovo, who sought asylum in January, 2002, and who lived with an uncle while his application was being processed. In May of the same year, the German authorities confirmed that the boy had previously sought asylum in Germany. After some time, the boy’s public counsel began to get worried since he was unable to contact the boy. The case worker called the uncle, who stated that the boy had been sent on to relatives in Norway in order to avoid being sent back to Kosovo.

After reviewing all the available documentation at the Migration Board, and having consulted the staff at the Children and Youth Division, the children’s advocates and the public counsels, we find that there are still 20 young people on whom we have no information at all either as to where they went or as to their present whereabouts.

A boy, aged 17, from Ukraine, sought asylum in May, 2002. The boy lived at the Children and Youth Division while his application was being processed. In June, the staff began to suspect that he was abusing drugs. Having consulted the boy’s advocate, the social welfare services were contacted once more. On the following day, the boy was found to have departed from the Division along with all his possessions.

Have we had any reason to suspect trafficking?

In 11 cases we have received information giving us reason to fear that the young people have been victims of trafficking. All the young people concerned had been living with relatives. A review of the documented material revealed that all the authorities involved had followed current routines in their attempts to prevent the young people from coming to harm.

Three girls, born 1986, 1987 and 1989, sought asylum in June, 2002, together with a grown-up brother. In July, 2002, the girl born in 1987 was found to be involved in a road accident. Another girl, born 1989, from another group of siblings was also found in the car. The car had been driven by a man who was under the influence of cocaine and was not related to the girls. In the car were 70,000 kronor in cash and clothes (women’s clothes and wet underclothes), suggestive of prostitution. The girls were placed in a children’s home for the night. The social welfare services in the municipality of residence decided to take the children into care under the terms of ss. 6 of the Care of Young Persons Act, but the children were able to abscond beforehand,

To improve our chances of discovering and protecting such young people, it is essential that the social welfare services take action as soon as there is any suggestion at all that the young people may be the victims of some sort of abuse. We have thus already been in touch with the government’s working group against sexual exploitation of children in order to seek help in establishing some form of practical cooperation with the appropriate authorities at the places where young people at risk apply for asylum.

Comments

Unaccompanied children and young people who abscond from Migration Board residences or from accommodation with relatives or fellow-nationals risk coming to harm, and it is therefore plain to all that we must do everything we can to find out what has happened to those who have absconded. Of course, we will never be entirely able to prevent young people from absconding unless we actually lock them up.

There is much room for improvement, however. In the course of our review of children and young people who absconded during 2002, we identified several shortcomings both in practical routines and in our documentation of what had actually been done when a minor absconded. Regular follow-up of our own routines is essential if we are to ensure that any improvements we introduce will be fully effective throughout the organisation – in fact, we are pleased to be able to note that such follow-up is now regularly carried out. It is also important to continue working on current quality improvement programmes for the reception of children and young people.

In our review, we found examples of cases in which we had reported youthful absconders to the police but which had nevertheless not been noted in the police’s own missing persons register. We have therefore been in touch with the National Police Board, and joint guidelines are now in the course of development.

After talks with our case workers out in the field, it seems that social welfare services staff often do not know how to proceed with reports from us that a child or young person has absconded.

As of the second half of this year, the social welfare services are now directly informed as soon as an unaccompanied minor arrives in Sweden, since the Government, in a spring bill, has established that it is the social welfare services who are responsible for investigating and determining where young people are to live pending processing of their asylum applications. The Migration Board reimburses the municipalities for any investigation costs incurred in cases in which a minor has applied for asylum. By this means, the social welfare services are kept better informed of the young people who risk absconding and we are better able to take joint action to protect young people and help prevent them from coming to harm. It is especially heartening to note the initiatives taken by the City of Stockholm, Upplands Väsby and various other municipalities with a view to developing methods for investigating the degree of care and protection needed by unaccompanied minors.

Lars Påhlsson

Acting Director-GeneralAnna Wessel

Head of Division