The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has found that France is responsible for grave and systematic violations of the rights of unaccompanied migrant children, noting that many of them are “being left homeless, deprived of basic care, and living in conditions that are degrading and contrary to human dignity.”
In a report published this week, the Committee acknowledged that France generally treats unaccompanied minors as children in need of care and protection, but expressed serious concern over flawed age assessment procedures that often lead to children being treated as adults.
The report stated that many assessments rely on physical appearance or unreliable medical examinations, and are conducted “without the assistance of a trusted adult, legal guardian or lawyer.”
As a result, “a high number of those claiming to be children were treated as adults after flawed age assessment procedures,” the Committee said. These shortcomings, it added, “have led to the systematic exclusion of many children from protection.”
The inquiry found that those awaiting age reassessment or appeal are often denied access to child protection services and left to survive “on the streets, in parks, or in informal makeshift camps without enough food and drinking water, and with no health care or education.”
The Committee warned that “these children are at high risk of being exposed to trafficking, abuse, maltreatment and police violence.”
The report also highlighted cases of unaccompanied children detained in airport waiting zones or border holding centres when their entry or identity was questioned, describing the “deprivation of these children’s liberty as disproportionate and therefore arbitrary.”
The UN body concluded that France has “breached its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child by violating a wide range of children’s rights,” including the right to education and health care, and the prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment.
It described the violations as “grave, as a large number of unaccompanied migrant children have suffered serious harm and lasting effects on their physical and mental health and development,” and “systematic, owing to the State Party’s repeated failure to implement legal, policy and other measures to protect unaccompanied migrant children living on the streets, in tents and in makeshift camps.”
The Committee further criticized that “the State Party has systematically refused to provide child protection services to these children, thus depriving them of access to an adequate standard of living and basic services.”
The report was published under Article 13 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which allows the Committee to launch inquiries into grave or systematic violations. The investigators visited Paris and Pas-de-Calais in October 2023 and met with several French ministries and judicial representatives.
Following its findings, the Committee urged France to apply the principle of presumption of minority, ensuring that all those claiming to be underage are treated as children until proven otherwise, and to guarantee adequate housing, food, and water to all unaccompanied minors so that “no child has to live in an informal camp or on the streets.”
