Chapter 4 UNACCOMPANIED AND SEPARATED CHILDREN Figure 21 | Unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum | 2010-2019 120,000 90,000 60,000 30,000 - 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2016 2017 2018 2019 ASYLUM APPLICATIONS REGISTERED REFUGEES Between 2010 and 2019, around 400,000 unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) lodged asylum applications in 117 countries or territories; about three per cent of the global number of new asylum applications. UASC applications peaked in the middle of the decade, when thousands of minors crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. The number has dropped in recent years, reaching 25,000 in 2019, based on provisional data. 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. This number increased to 153,300 in 2019. However, similar to UASC seeking asylum, many countries with large registered refugee populations do not report on unaccompanied and separated children in the population. Germany registered 87,000 or one fifth of the 400,000 UASC asylum applications. Sweden (60,600), Italy (30,000) and the United Kingdom (22,000) were other main destinations. These four countries together registered half of all UASC asylum claims worldwide, mainly by unaccompanied children from Afghanistan, Eritrea and Syria. It is important to note that data on UASC seeking asylum is an underestimate because many countries registering asylum-seekers do not report on unaccompanied and separated children separately. 46 2015 The largest number of registered UASC refugees was reported in Ethiopia (41,500), where UASC represent six per cent of the refugee population. In Uganda (40,000 UASC), Kenya (10,700 UASC) and Cameroon (9,000 UASC) the proportion of UASC ranged between two and three per cent of the refugee population. Almost half of the 153,300 registered UASC refugees were South Sudanese. This finding shows how essential it is that data are collected to identify these children, protect and assist them. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2019