Chapter 5 Unaccompanied and separated children While all children must be protected, some of the youngest asylum-seekers and refugees face even greater risks. This is particularly the case for “unaccompanied and separated children” – minors who have fled alone or have become separated from parents and are not being cared for by an adult who by law or custom has responsibility to do so. It is essential that data are collected to identify these children, protect and assist them. Somalia (600), Guinea (500), Eritrea (500), Syria (400) and Iraq (300). In efforts to improve reporting on this vulnerable population, UNHCR began reporting on unaccompanied and separated refugee children, in addition to asylum applicants in last year’s reporting and has decided to continue to do so in its efforts to improve and expand data. Unfortunately, data on displaced unaccompanied and separated children are limited, both in terms of availability and the quality of data reported. Many countries with significant asylum claims do not report on unaccompanied and separated children among asylum applicants. Similarly, many countries with large registered refugee populations do not report on unaccompanied and separated children in the population. As in previous years, the most common country of origin for unaccompanied and separated child asylum applicant was Afghanistan with 4,800 claims – just over half the 8,800 submitted in 2017 and substantially below the 26,700 in 2016. Eritrea continued to be the second most common country of origin with 3,500 claims. Asylum applications In 2018, provisional data indicated that 27,600 unaccompanied or separated children sought asylum on an individual basis in at least 60 countries that report on this figure. While it is known that this is an underestimate, the trend indicates a decline in the number of unaccompanied or separated children applying for asylum, which reflects the overall trends in declining asylum claims since 2015. Most of these claims were from children aged 15 to 17 (18,500) but a substantial minority were from younger children aged under 15 (6,000). As in previous years, Germany received the most asylum claims from unaccompanied and separated children with 4,100 – substantially lower than the 35,900 in 2016 and 9,100 in 2017. Although the number of asylum-seekers has declined overall, the decrease in applications by unaccompanied and separated children was nonetheless disproportionately high. As in previous years, children from Afghanistan submitted the most such claims in Germany (700) but this was just 5 per cent of the 15,000 claims submitted by unaccompanied and separated Afghan children in 2016. The next most common nationalities were unhcr > Global trends 2018 Other countries that received significant numbers of asylum applications from unaccompanied and separated children included the United Kingdom (2,900), Greece (2,600), Sweden (1,700), Egypt (1,700), Turkey (1,700), Libya (1,500), Tanzania (1,400), the Netherlands (1,200) and Morocco (1,200). Registered refugees In 2017, UNHCR began to report on the number of unaccompanied and separated children in the refugee population from UNHCR refugee registers and in 2018 requested governments to do the same. In response, 53 countries reported a total of 111,000 unaccompanied and separated child refugees in 2018. The largest number of unaccompanied and separated child refugees was reported in Uganda with 41,200, with the majority aged under 15 (29,900) and 2,800 aged under 5. Most of these children originated from South Sudan (37,000) and DRC (3,500). Unaccompanied and separated children represented nearly 5 per cent of the entire South Sudanese refugee population present in Uganda. Kenya reported 13,200 unaccompanied and separated children in 2018. Other countries with significant such populations included Sudan (11,300), DRC (9,400), Canada (8,400), Chad (4,200), Lebanon (3,200), Burundi (2,200), Morocco (2,200), Guinea (2,000), Rwanda (1,800), Egypt (1,800), Zambia (1,500), Ireland (1,100) and Iraq (1,000). As in 2017, South Sudan was the most common country of origin for unaccompanied and separated child refugees, with 58,600 representing 53 per cent of the global population. Other countries of origin reported for unaccompanied and separated children included DRC (9,900), Rwanda (7,600), Syria (7,600), CAR (5,600), Burundi (2,300), Somalia (2,200), Côte d’Ivoire (2,100), Nigeria (2,000), Afghanistan (1,500) and Sudan (1,100). ■ 49