The accompanying adult(s), who could also be
unrelated, may not necessarily be able to, or
suitable for, assuming responsibility for their
care. In the EU, separated children are – when
registered – generally registered as unaccompa-
nied children. Anecdotal evidence suggests that
most separated children arriving in the EU are
boys between the ages of 13 and 17 years from
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and accompanied
by a sibling, uncle, aunt or grandparents. They
travel without their parents, who stay in the
country of origin to protect their house or land,
or because the family could only afford the
traveling costs for one of its members 17 .
Smuggling. The procurement, in order to
obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other
material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person
into a State Party of which the person is not a
national or a permanent resident 18 . Smuggling,
contrary to trafficking, does not require an
element of exploitation, coercion, or violation of
human rights 19 .
character. Trafficking for sexual exploitation
and for forced labour are the most prominently
detected forms, but trafficking victims can also
be exploited in many other ways. Victims are
trafficked to be used as beggars, for forced or
sham marriages, benefit fraud, production of
pornography or for organ removal, to mention
some of the forms countries have reported 21 .
Undocumented / irregular migrants.
Undocumented migrants are those without a
residence permit authorising them to regularly
reside in the country they are in. Usually this
is because a person’s residence or work permit
has expired or become invalidated (for exam-
ple, due to job loss, breakdown of a personal
relationship), they have been unsuccessful in
the procedures for international protection and
family reunification, they have stayed beyond
the length of a short-stay visa or have entered
irregularly. Children usually become undocu-
mented automatically if their parent loses their
status, and can also be born “undocumented
migrants” 22 .
Trafficking in human beings. The recruitment,
transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt
of persons, by means of the threat or use of
force or other forms of coercion, of abduction,
of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or
of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or
receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the
consent of a person having control over another
person, for the purpose of exploitation 20 .
Trafficking in persons can take place within the
borders of one State or may have a transnational
17 _ See “Current Migration Situation in the EU: Separated Children”, FRA, December 2016,
http://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/december-monthly-migration-focus-separated-children.
18 _ UN Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime, 2000, Art. 3(a).
19 _ “Key Migration Terms”, IOM.
20 _ UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention
against Transnational Organized Crime, 2000, Art. 3(a).
21 _ “Global Report on Trafficking in Persons”, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2016,
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2016_Global_Report_on_Trafficking_in_Persons.pdf.
22 _ As defined by the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM). See also PICUM’s Terminology Leaflet in
English, Greek, Dutch, Italian, French, German and Spanish to read about why not to use the term ‘illegal migrant’.
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