The increasing number of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Europe is a “particularly striking and worrying characteristic” of the current refugee crisis, according to a new report on migration trends in 2015 by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The responsibility for children falls on the state where they first arrive and identified.
In 2014, the 24,000 unaccompanied minors applying for asylum comprised 4 per cent of all asylum seekers in the European Union (EU).
Many of the children who arrive at 16 or 17 years old come with no formal schooling. With no knowledge of the language of the host countries, the challenge of integrating them is different and more difficult than for adults as they need housing, schooling and specialised support services. Many children vanish from reception centres shortly after arrival, the report notes.
Released along with the OECD’s International Migration Outlook 2015, the report probes the many trends that set the recent refugee influx into the EU apart from ealier mass migration. The varying push-factors for migration in the countries of origin, the diversity of nationalities, the relatively high education levels of a large section of migrants in relation to the levels in the host country, and the high numbers of unaccompanied minors (UAM), are some facets of the recent refugee wave.
“The diversity of nationalities, motives for migration and individual profiles also creates a huge challenge for asylum systems and welcoming communities in main European destination countries. Moreover, given the complexity of its main driving forces, there is unfortunately little hope that the situation will improve significantly in the near future,” the report notes.
In 2015, Europe will receive up to one million asylum requests, and will grant asylum to between 350,000 and 450,000 refugees, the report predicts. This would suggest that less more than 50 per cent of applications may be rejected, an issue that is likely to further complicate the crisis.
Most of the people who have applied for asylum enter Europe through illegal border crossings, and the numbers of these crossings 500,000 in the first eight months of 2015 were double that of the whole of 2014.
Over this year, and particularly over the summer, migration routes changed with the Eastern Mediterranean and Western Balkan route favoured by asylum seekers mainly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as by people leaving the Western Balkan countries of Kosovo and Albania. Migrants from the last two countries are mainly youth driven by poverty and high unemployment in their country and despite the acceptance rate of applications from these countries being close to zero, the report states.
Though Italy, Greece and Hungary are the frontline countries of reception, the main destination for asylum seekers remain the same as in the early 1990s, namely Germany, followed by Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. As a ratio of its population Sweden with 7.8 refugees for 1000 of its population was the highest in the EU per-capita terms.
The report notes that even if Germany receives 800,000 asylum requests, this would be equivalent to 1 per cent of its population.
While in 2014, the main origin countries of asylum seekers to the EU were Syria (21 per cent), Kosovo (9.6 per cent), Eritrea (6.4 percent) and Iraq (2.6 per cent), in 2015 the composition shifted. In the first six months of 2015, Syria, Eritrea and Iraq together represented only about a quarter of all asylum claims, a share that increased to one-third in June 2015.
The diversity of origin countries of asylum seekers is challenging, the report notes, as it makes integration of diverse groups more complex.
The situation is unlikely to change in the foreseeable future the report concludes. “Looking forward, a range of risk factors could fuel flows within existing migration routes (e.g. further deterioration of security in Syria, Iraq or even Ukraine, instability in Lebanon). Demographic and economic factors in Sub-Saharan African countries will continue to generate a push for outmigration, as will high poverty and unemployment rates in the Western Balkans, especially among Roma.”
