GERMANY
LEGAL AND POLICY CONTEXT
Over the past few years Germany has experienced a sharp increase in the number of unaccompanied children coming into the country to seek international protection. According to Eurostat, the agency that collects statistical data from all EU countries, almost 36,000 unaccompanied children applied for asylum in Germany in 2016 compared to over 22,255 in 2015 1. At the beginning of 2017, 47,990 unaccompanied children were living in Germany 2; a further 15,458 were young adults over 18 who had arrived in Germany as children and received permission to stay in the care of youth welfare services after reaching 18.
On 1 November 2015 a new law 3 reorganising the reception procedure for unaccompanied child refugees came into effect. According to this law, unaccompanied children entering Germany are to be taken into provisional care by local youth welfare offices( cf. § 42a SGB VIII), which are responsible for ensuring a suitable placement 4. Upon arrival and following an initial assessment by at a youth welfare office, children may be transferred to another municipality or state. The local youth welfare office carries out an individual assessment to decide on the most suitable type of alternative care for each child based on his or her needs, which can consist of placement with relatives, in foster families or in family-like, residential care. A family court then appoints a guardian. Often this function is carried out by a youth welfare office employee.
Unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Germany are usually granted a temporary residence permit with a tolerated stay status and are protected from deportation until they turn 18 5. The legal situation and rights of unaccompanied children may differ depending on the status that they receive. For example, a recent law introduced in March 2016 –“ Asylum Package II” – limits the right to family reunification only to unaccompanied children who are granted either refugee status or subsidiary protection 6. Furthermore, the protection framework and practices applied with unaccompanied children differs from state to state.
Most undocumented children are placed in residential care facilities, typically in residential groups for unaccompanied children. Children are entitled to care and protection and have access to education and vocational training. Despite this protection framework, the absence of a long-term residence permit results in legal uncertainty and constitutes a major challenge in promoting the social inclusion of migrant and refugee children.
Unaccompanied children are entitled to guardianship support, and local youth welfare offices have guardianship responsibility for all
1 _“ 63 300 Unaccompanied Minors among Asylum Seekers Registered in the EU in 2016”, Eurostat, news release 80 / 2017, 11 May 2017, http:// www. europeanmigrationlaw. eu / documents / Asylum % 20applicants % 20considered % 20to % 20be % 20unaccompanied % 20minors. pdf. 2 _“ Statistical Data on Unaccompanied Children( period: 1 January 2017- 30 June 2017)”, Federal Office for Migration and Refugees. 3 _ The name of this law is“ Gesetz zur Verbesserung der Unterbringung, Versorgung und Betreuung ausländischer Kinder und Jugendlicher“
( SGB VIII). 4 _“ Unaccompanied minors,” Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, last modified 1 October 2016, http:// www. bamf. de / EN / Fluechtlingsschutz / UnbegleiteteMinderjaehrige / unbegleitete-minderjaehrige-node. html. 5 _ A“ tolerated stay”( Duldung) is granted to foreigners who are obliged to leave the country but whose deportation cannot be carried out for technical reasons( e. g. lack of necessary documents) or on humanitarian grounds. 6 _ Family reunification for those children with subsidiary protection has been suspended for 2 years( until March 2018).
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