Separated Children, Exile and Home-Country Links

Separated refugee children and young people face a considerable number of challenges in their daily lives. It is within this context that the interview material in this report should be considered. First, there is the experience in their home country which resulted in flight or exile. The reasons why separated children travel are numerous: armed conflict, persecution because of race, religion, ethnicity, political opinion or gender, child-specific human rights violations, such as being forcibly inducted as a child soldier or female genital mutilation, trafficking for exploitation, the death or disappearance of parents, family and institutional abuse, and extreme poverty.