Europa Institute/Department of European Law, Faculty of Law, Leiden University
UNACCOMPANIED MINORS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION Date: Wednesday 23 of November 2022 Venue: Faculty of Law, University of Leiden, The Netherlands Conveners: Dr. Moritz Jesse & Dr. Mark Klaassen (both Europa Institute, Leiden University) Contact: m.jesse@law.leidenuniv.nl & m.a.k.klaassen@law.leidenuniv.nl Ambition: Publication of edited volume or special issue Paper proposals: 31 July 2022 (to the above-mentioned emails) Paper selection: 31 August 2022 Submission paper: 01 November 2022
We are seeking papers to be presented at the DAMR Fall-Conference (22/11/2022 in Leiden) on the topic of unaccompanied minors in the European Union.
Challenges arising from the movement of unaccompanied minors rank among the most difficult to handle in the field of migration. As soon as children are involved, there are no simple solutions in any decisions concerning the legal status, right to remain, or expulsion of immigrants. This is even more so if minors travel alone and present themselves to the authorities in the EU as unaccompanied, thus without anyone legally ‘in charge’ of them at their side. Challenges arise for this group in all phases of immigration trajectories from reception, administration, to settlement, inclusion, or expulsion. These challenges, which shall be in the center of our conference, are legal (e.g. human rights, duty of care, application of immigration law in a fair and predictable manner, right to education, etc.), social (e.g. inclusion, use of support networks, prevention of exclusion, discrimination, and abuse, or guarantee of equal chances to education, etc.), and political (e.g. immigration as a sensitive, divisive topic in times of populist political movements, the inability to govern unaccompanied minors with general policies without political involvement, etc.) in nature and will be dealt with in two separate panels during the conference.
The first panel is titled ‘How to deal with arriving unaccompanied minors.’ The panel is focused on the phase until status determination. Topics suitable for this panel include reception, guardianship and legal representation, age determination, participation in the asylum procedure and the duty of care toward unaccompanied minors.
The second panel is titled ‘Inclusion or Removal? What comes after the determination of migration status for unaccompanied minors?’ This panel will focus on what comes after the status determination, thus dealing with issues such as inclusion, integration in the host state, education, reaching the age of majority, settlement and (protection against) removal.
Other topics relating to the general theme of the conference will be considered as well.
Both panels seek interventions from different disciplines highlighting challenges and attempted solutions throughout the EU. Papers that compare approaches, politics, policies, law and its application in different Member States are welcome. We also invite papers analyzing challenges in individual EU Member States and reactions to these challenges. Papers will be discussed by DAMR members before and during the conference.
The convenors are not able to pay for travel and accommodation. Participation in the conference is free of charge. We will also serve lunch and coffee/tea during the day.
DRAFT conference PROGRAMME for Wednesday 23 November 2022:* 09:00 – 09.30 Registration and coffee/tea 09:30 – 10:00 Kick-off plenary 10:00 – 12:30 Panel I: How to deal with arriving unaccompanied minors? 12:30 – 13:30 Lunch 13:30 – 14:30 Key Note address (tbc.) 14:30 – 15:40 Coffee break 15:30 – 18:00 Panel II: Inclusion or Removal? What comes after the determination of migration status for unaccompanied minors? 18:00 Drinks (and dinner for those who are interested)
- Please note that the program is a draft – starting times, order of panels, etc. may be subject to change.