EUROPE: Disappearing, Departing, Running Away: A surfeit of children in Europe?
Summary: Study carried out in Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland on the disappearances of unaccompanied foreign minors placed in institutions.
An investigation was carried out in four countries on the disappearance of several unaccompanied foreign minors from the institutions in which the judicial or administrative authorities had placed them.
The findings of this investigation, which was undertaken between 2008 and 2009 by The Terre des Hommes - child relief Foundation, revealed that:
- The disappearance of children from institutions is not a marginal or rare phenomenon;
- The phenomenon is prevalent at local and regional levels, but the publication of consolidated national statistics is non-existent in the contexts investigated;
- It is difficult to determine the scope and seriousness of the phenomenon for a number of reasons: the criteria at local and regional levels for taking children into care and supporting them are not uniform, the services concerned operate in isolation, and the variety of terms used, such as disappearances, running away, departure without forwarding address, for example, are also problematic.
- Some of the people in charge of institutions consider the term 'disappearance' to be inappropriate, as for some this indicates the need to initiate a judicial investigation; a very small minority of these people consider the disappearance to be the child’s free choice.
Further information
pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/Disappearing_children.pdf
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