Table Of ContentMarkiewicz-Stanny | Milej | Wedeł-Domaradzka (Eds.)
Children in Migration
Status and Identity
Joanna Markiewicz-Stanny | Tomasz Milej
Agnieszka Wedeł-Domaradzka (Eds.)
Children in Migration
Status and Identity
This book was reviewed by Prof. Wioletta Jedlecka and
Prof. Anna Magdalena Kosińska.
The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the
Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data
are available on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de
ISBN 978-3-8487-8939-9 (Print)
978-3-7489-3216-1 (ePDF)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-3-8487-8939-9 (Print)
978-3-7489-3216-1 (ePDF)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Markiewicz-Stanny, Joanna | Milej, Tomasz
Wedeł-Domaradzka, Agnieszka
Children in Migration
Status and Identity
Joanna Markiewicz-Stanny | Tomasz Milej
Agnieszka Wedeł-Domaradzka (Eds.)
324 pp.
Includes bibliographic references.
ISBN 978-3-8487-8939-9 (Print)
Onlineversion
978-3-7489-3216-1 (ePDF) Nomos eLibrary
1st Edition 2022
© Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, Baden-Baden, Germany 2022. Overall responsibility
for manufacturing (printing and production) lies with Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
& Co. KG.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system,
without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Under § 54 of the German
Copyright Law where copies are made for other than private use a fee is payable to
“Verwertungs gesellschaft Wort”, Munich.
No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining
from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Nomos
or the editors.
Table of contents
Introduction 7
Part I General considerations 11
The right to an identity: The context of the rights of the migrant
child 13
Agnieszka Wedeł-Domaradzka
Interplay of International and Domestic Laws Governing Birth
Registration of Children: Need for Reconsideration 37
Ratemo Tom Junior
Climate Change and Refugee Children: The Key Refugee Protection
Standards provided by the Convention on Rights of the Child 75
Allan Mukuki
“When a child is (going to be) born…” – The influence of
motherhood on the status of women irregular migrants 91
Magdalena Półtorak
Part II Regional solutions 111
On integration (not only of migrants) – differently 113
Jacek Mazurkiewicz, Piotr Szymaniec
5
Table of contents
A right to asylum? Ensuring effective protection of migrant
children’s rights in Africa 131
Tomasz Milej
Regional Reponses to Nationality, Citizenship and child
statelessness: The case of the East Africa Community 151
Emmah Wabuke, Patricia Ouma
Rethinking the Right to Nationality in Africa: A Reflection on the
Children of Nubian Descent in Kenya Case 169
Faith Kabata
Part III Country studies 185
Migrant Children in German AnkER centres vs. European and
international standards 187
Martyna Łaszewska-Hellriegel
Sociological Perspectives on Childhood under Conditions of
Refugeeness in Germany 211
Caterina Rohde-Abuba
The Principle of the Best Interests of the Child in the Italian System
of Protection of Unaccompanied Migrant Children 235
Amina Maneggia
New rights for unaccompanied foreign minors in light of the Italian
Law 47/2017 269
Alessia Valongo
Bibliography 287
6
Introduction
The chapters of the present volume are intended to discuss the legal status
of migrant children and to address a number of questions it raises under
the public international and the national law of European and African
States.
The volume distances itself from discourses on migration which portray
migrants first and foremost as a security threat. Rooted in Europe’s racist
past, they were given new impetus by the so called ʻmigration crisisʼ of
2015. And yet, the number of people who reached Europe’s shores at that
time was more or less equivalent to a combined number of refugees hosted
by just two African countries: Uganda and Kenya. There are hardly any
avenues of legal migration from the South to the North. Those who try to
reach Europe’s ʻpearly gatesʼ nevertheless, are likely to face mistreatment,
abuse or death. The billions spent on fortifying and militarizing Europe’s
borders fuel the perception of a migrant as a threat. And this perception
is used as an argument to deploy at the borders even more formidable
military force and spent even more billions on it. So is the vicious cycle
that hits the most vulnerable. People are dying in a cold forest at the
Polish-Belorussian border or are being tortured in an overcrowded camp
in Libya, having been detained by the EU-sponsored Libyan Coastguard.
Many of them are children. The vulnerable among the vulnerable.
Contrary to a common perception, most of migration in Africa is not
migration to the North, but intra-African migration. The African states
came up with laws and policies on the national and international level that
address the situation of migrant children. Some of them may be regarded
as best practices. To examine them is one of the volume’s objectives.
An effective protection of minors, whose migration status is not regula
ted, but whose numbers keep increasing, is an issue in all regions of the
globe. Typically, research studies deal with the individual specific rights
of the child and the protection of those rights. However, how can a
child reap benefits of these rights, if his or her identity is not properly
documented? Children in irregular situation are very often invisible to the
authorities and find themselves in grey areas of protection because of their
undocumented status. The reason for it is a lack of formal registration,
birth certificates, passports or other confirmation of their citizenship or
statelessness. Accordingly, one the main areas of reflection in the present
volume are legal obligations applicable to children lacking proper docu
7
mentation, citizenship or registration and thus being in an ʻirregularʼ
situation.
While the universal and regional human rights guarantees are the start
ing point or the discussions, emphasis is also on the practical side of
their implementation at the national level. And while an international
consensus that migrating children should be treated as vulnerable group in
a need of a special protection is certainly there, offering of such protection
in practical terms proves to be difficult. To identify the most important
challenges and gaps that exist in this field in practice today is thus a further
goal of the research. In pursuance of this goal, the volume presents stud
ies addressing international standards concerning registration procedures
including their conclusion in a timely manner, transparency and accessi
bility, as well as the right to a name and age assessment procedures.
Some problems experienced by migrating child in a destination country
are caused by practice in his or her state of origin; this include denial of
registration and/or certification of births to a certain category of persons
particularly for children born to refugees in exile or transit and for ‘illegal’
migrant workers whose parents cannot be able to obtain supporting docu
ments required for registration of birth as well as for children with mixed
nationality parentage. This documentation inadequacies create fundamen
tal problems, such as denial to an individual as a child or difficulties with
repatriation and family reunification. Without proper documents, it can
also be burdensome to obtain a refugee status and fulfil administrative
requirements to receive appropriate funding and care. Due to the limited
legal capacity, children constantly suffer the consequences of their parents’
or other adults’ actions. They also have to bear consequences of their
parents’ ʻirregularʼ status. This applies in particular to the immigration
detention. In the practice, children are still deprived of their liberty due to
the irregular migration status of their parents, which is aimed at keeping
the familytogether. Even though developments in international case-law
require a different perspective to be taken, in such cases, states are more
likely to imprison the whole family than to use alternatives for the sake of
the best interest of the child.
Obviously, registration and documentation issues may not be discussed
in isolation from the legal status of children in the context of migration.
Therefore, the present volume looks also into some fundamental questi
ons. Should the migrant child be treated first of all as a ʻchild,ʼ or rather
as an ʻasylum seekerʼ or a ʻmigrant?ʼ What does it mean to have a “the
right to be who I am?” What are the limits of the integration in the society
of the new country of residence? Does a child have a right not to be
8
Introduction
assimilated or integrated? How to adequately address the child’s ʻidentity,ʼ
his or her belonging to a certain place, religion or ethnic group?
Taking the East African Community member states as a case study, the
volume addresses the causes and consequences of child statelessness, and
existing challenges in developing a regional response to child statelessness.
There is also no adequate international legal framework for protection of
refugee children, since the one currently in place falls short of effectively
safeguard their right to asylum. Since the main refugee conventions do not
provide for a direct protection for some categories of refugee children, for
example those displaced due to the climate change, such protection can
be achieved by proper application of international human rights standards
like the ones included in the Convention on the Rights of the Child or
African Charter on the Rights and Welfare on the Child.
Joanna Markiewicz-Stanny,
Tomasz Milej,
Agnieszka Wedeł-Domaradzka
9
