Decision-making regarding an asylum request of a minor requires decision-makers to determine the best interests of the child when the minor is relatively unknown. This article presents a systematic review of the existing knowledge of the situation of recently arrived refugee children in the host country. This research is based on the General Comment No. 14 of UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. It shows the importance of knowing the type and number of stressful life events a refugee child has experienced before arrival, as well as the duration and severity of these events. The most common mental health problems children face upon arrival in the host country are PTSD, depression and various anxiety disorders. The results identify the relevant elements of the best interests of the child assessment, including implications for procedural safeguards, which should promote a child rights-based decision in the asylum procedure.
The systematic review presented in this article aims to reveal what supports and hampers refugee children in telling their, often traumatic, life stories. This is important to ensure that migration decisions are based on reliable information about the children's needs for protection. A systematic review was conducted in academic journals, collecting all available scientific knowledge about the disclosure of life stories by refugee minors in the context of social work, guardianship, foster care, asylum procedures, mental health assessment, and therapeutic settings. The resulting 39 studies were thoroughly reviewed with reference to what factors aided or hampered the refugee children's disclosure of their life stories. The main barriers to disclosure were feelings of mistrust and self-protection from the side of the child and disrespect from the side of the host community. The facilitators for disclosing life stories were a positive and respectful attitude of the interviewer, taking time to build trust, using nonverbal methods, providing agency to the children, and involving trained interpreters. Social workers, mentors, and guardians should have time to build trust and to help a young refugee in revealing the life story before the minor is heard by the migration authorities. The lack of knowledge on how refugee children can be helped to disclose their experiences is a great concern because the decision in the migration procedure is based on the story the child is able to disclose.
This study aimed to shed light on the opinions of unaccompanied refugee children (N = 98) in various care facilities in the Netherlands (small living groups, small living units, foster families, large reception centres) about their mental health, their healthcare needs and their rearing environment. A mixed methods design was applied. The quality of the child-rearing environment and the age on arrival in the host country proved to be predictive of mental health outcomes. Unaccompanied children living in large reception centres experienced the lowest quality of rearing environment, the highest mental health problems and poor access to mental healthcare. Implications for practice and research are reflected upon.
Best Interests of the Child (BIC) assessments provide migration authorities with behavioral information about which interests of the child could be taken into account before a decision is made on the request for a residence permit. This study provides insight into the quality and outcomes of BIC assessments with 16 unaccompanied children (15-18 years) and 11 accompanied children (4-16 years) who have recently arrived in the Netherlands and requested asylum (N = 27). The results suggest that BIC assessments provide relevant information that enables assessors to determine the best interests of recently arrived refugee children. The inter-rater reliability of the BIC-Questionnaire, an instrument that evaluates the child-rearing environment and that is one of the components of the BIC assessment, was fairly good. The children in the sample had experienced a high number of stressful life events and a majority reported trauma related stress symptoms or other emotional problems. The quality of the child-rearing environment in the country of origin had protected their development insufficiently in the past and would not protect their development sufficiently in the future. The results show that in many cases forced return to the country of origin can put children's development at risk.
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