Background

This inquiry into the situation of unaccompanied minors in France arose on foot of a request made on 4 November 2020 by two NGOs: Conseil Français des associations pour les droits de l’enfant and Kids Empowerment. The NGOs alleged serious violations of the rights of unaccompanied migrant children in France, including deficiencies in the age assessment procedures, sub-standard or no child protection services, deprivation of liberty and an overall failure to subject national and departmental standards to a best interests impact assessment. The Committee on the Rights of the Child (the Committee) considered that the information provided was reliable and that it indicated grave or systematic violations by France of rights in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). On 5 March 2021, pursuant to Article 13 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure (OPIC), the Committee invited France to submit observations, which France duly did. The Committee subsequently appointed two of its members to conduct an inquiry under Article 13, invited France’s cooperation and asked France to agree to a country visit by the two members. The two members conducted the visit over four days in October 2023, meeting with representatives of numerous relevant State entities, the two NGOs, a number of unaccompanied minors and other stakeholders. The Committee transmitted a confidential report of its inquiry to France, to which France responded with observations on 22 September 2025. The Committee published the report of the inquiry on 3 October 2025.

Findings of fact, law, recommendations and the question of grave or systematic violations

The Committee makes findings of fact under seven different headings (identification, age assessment and presumption of minority of unaccompanied migrant children; care and accommodation; access to healthcare and education; application for asylum; access to the territory of the state party and detention at the border; equal treatment; legal representation and assistance and access to justice). Each broad finding of fact is considered a violation of several or numerous rights in the CRC for which the State is responsible, notwithstanding the delegation by the State of some of its functions to NGOs and private actors. Pursuant to Article 13 of OPIC, the Committee considers all violations bar one (the prohibition of discrimination in Article 2(1)) to be grave and systematic (see further under Commentary). The Committee makes 18 specific recommendations. For reasons of space, this case-note clusters the findings of fact, law and recommendations under four broad thematic headings, before addressing the Committee’s conclusions on the grave or systematic nature of the violations.

Legislative and operational responsibility for dealing with unaccompanied minors

At the outset, the Committee notes with approval that unaccompanied minors are entitled to apply for a residence permit up to the age of 17 and a half and have a right to reside in France until they are 18 (para 12). It also notes the well-developed regulatory framework governing unaccompanied minors in France, including the adoption of a comprehensive Child Protection Act in February 2022. However, the Committee observes that the legislation has not been fully implemented (para 13).

The legislation provides for division of responsibility for unaccompanied minors between the national and the departmental level. Persons identified as unaccompanied minors are referred by a National Referral Support Unit to a particular department on the basis of an allocation system (para 30). The department is then responsible for emergency temporary accommodation, age assessment and – for those who are recognised as children – longer-term care and protection (support, accommodation, education, healthcare) (para 32). Although the departments are governed by national legislation, guidelines and frameworks, there are large variations in standards between departments (para 45), with some departments refusing outright to accept any such children (para 31).

Despite the variations, the Committee finds numerous cross-cutting problems relating to the treatment of unaccompanied minors by departments in terms of age assessment and subsequent protection and care. There are also shortcomings in the provision of guardianship, legal representation and child-friendly information and advice. These various findings are drawn out below. The Committee notes a practice in some departments of relying on NGOs, volunteers and pro-bono services for the conduct of age assessment (para 23), guardianship (para 48) and legal representation (para 49), respectively. This delegation of responsibility is often without adequate training, supervision or oversight and is apt to place an overwhelming burden on the persons who undertake such roles.

In terms of resources, the Committee notes that the national budget for unaccompanied minors has increased in recent years and represents a significant proportion of the overall child protection budget (para 35). However, the budgetary allocation per unaccompanied minor is lower than for other children in the care system, which affects accommodation, educational provision, food, activities and the (under)hiring and remuneration of professions who work with such children (paras 35 and 45).

In terms of the asylum system, the Committee notes that the national office responsible for first instance asylum decisions has developed a specific child-friendly policy for unaccompanied minors (para 41). This has resulted in an extremely high recognition rate for this cohort (82% in 2022). However, very few unaccompanied minors apply for asylum (less than 7% of those in the child welfare system in 2022), despite the benefits of being granted protection status. The Committee finds that the reasons for this are complex, but are due in part to the lack of knowledge about asylum procedures, lack of supports detailed above and lack of mental health services to support children during the process.

The Committee finds that the failure to prioritise the best interests of the child in laws and policies, the insufficient funding for services, especially guardianship, legal aid and child-friendly information, and the absence of training in assessing children’s best interests for professionals amount to a violation of Article 3(1) in conjunction with Article 12. The committee further considers that the differential treatment of migrant and national children within the child protection system to be a violation of the prohibition of discrimination in Article 2(1). The Committee recommends that France fully implement its own legislation; systematically appoint a legal representative (guardian) and a lawyer for all procedures; ensure the collection and dissemination of disaggregated data on unaccompanied minors; allocate sufficient resources throughout the territory to ensure equal treatment for all unaccompanied minors; and provide training to all involved professionals on the rights of asylum seeking children, and in particular on General Comment No. 6 (2006), Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, Joint General Comment No. 3 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and No. 22 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the general principles regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration, and Joint General Comment No. 4 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and No. 23 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on State obligations regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration in countries of origin, transit, destination and return.

Age assessment

The departments do not provide standardised statistics on age assessment (i.e. the number claiming to be unaccompanied minors, the number receiving positive or negative age assessment decisions; the proportion of the negative decisions overturned or confirmed on appeal), making comparison difficult (para 28). Nonetheless, there are certain common themes. Under national law, unaccompanied minors are taken into emergency temporary accommodation while awaiting initial age assessment (para 19), although some departments appear to conduct an ‘initial selection’ which leaves some children on the streets or placed unsupervised in hotels (para 20). The initial age assessment generally comprises a single hour-long psycho-social interview, conducted without a support person, with physical appearance often being determinative (paras 21 & 22). Identity documents are frequently rejected as fraudulent without any attempt at verification, and the burden of proof placed entirely on the child (para 24). If doubt persists, an X-ray is generally carried out, although this is supposed only to occur under judicial direction and in exceptional cases (para 25).

The presumption of minority only persists until the initial age assessment decision is taken, at which point child protection services are withdrawn (para 26). There is a right of appeal and in some departments appeals have a high success rate but many children appear not to be adequately informed about their right to appeal (para 27). Moreover, the appeal can take eight months or longer and has no suspensive effect. The lodging of an appeal comes with significant hazard, because such children contest that they are adults and are thus excluded from adult services, effectively rendering them street homeless. This finding is taken up below.

The Committee finds that the age assessment procedures are a violation of Article 3(1) in conjunction with Article 12 CRC. It further considers that the practice of summarily rejecting identity documents is contrary to Article 8 CRC. The Committee makes recommendations in relation to the operation of the principle of the presumption of minority; the acceptance of identity documents as genuine unless there is proof to the contrary, as well as ceasing the practice of placing the burden of proof solely on the child; ending reliance on x-rays and developing interdisciplinary methods of age assessment; systematically appointing a representative (guardian), lawyer and interpreter; and clearly offering an effective and speedy appeal.

Child protection and care

The Committee distinguishes between unaccompanied minors who are recognised as such and those who are not. In terms of the former, although they are supposed to be placed in specialised accommodation with access to basic services, there is an acute shortage of such accommodation. This means that many children are accommodated in hotels without proper supervision or care – a practice that has been officially prohibited since February 2024 but that continues nonetheless (para 32).

As for those unaccompanied minors who are not recognised as such, these may be children who have ‘failed’ the initial age assessment or who are transiting France to attempt to get to the UK by boat. These children are in a particularly precarious situation because they are unable to access either child or adult reception services and depend on the charity of private individuals and NGOs (para 33). Accordingly, they are effectively homeless and live in tents or makeshift shelters on the streets or in informal camps, where they are exposed to trafficking, exploitation and violence (para 36). The Committee gives a vivid account of conditions and police evictions in makeshift camps in Paris, Calais and Grande-Synthe (paras 34 and 37).

The Committee notes the profound mental, physical and sexual health needs of such children, sparked by an often hazardous journey to France and exacerbated by street homelessness (para 38). However, various bureaucratic hurdles – the lack of a legal representative to consent to healthcare on behalf of the child and the lack of a definitive irregular status for children in the age assessment appeals process which would otherwise entitle them to healthcare – prevent these children from accessing healthcare (para 39). These children also have no access to education (para 40).

The Committee finds that the treatment of these children meets the threshold for a violation of the prohibition of inhuman and degrading treatment (Article 37(a)). Separately, it finds violations of a plethora of rights relating to the protection and care of children: Article 3(1), Article 6, Article 19, Article 20, Article 22, Article 27 and Article 34. Furthermore, the Committee finds violations of the right to health (Article 24), the right to social security (Article 26) and the right to recovery and reintegration of a child victim of any form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (Article 39). The complete absence of access to education for unaccompanied minors living on the street or in camps also constitutes a violation of Article 28. The Committee recommends that France ensures adequate housing, food and water for all unaccompanied migrant children so that no child is required to live on the streets or in camps; increase outreach activities to bring services to unaccompanied migrant children, particularly in high pressure departments and locations; ensure equal access to education, healthcare, and psychological and psychosocial counselling and reintegration services for all unaccompanied migrant children regardless of status; and establish a system for preventing and responding to the risks to which unaccompanied migrant children are exposed.

Access to territory and detention at the border

The Committee furthermore finds an established practice of keeping unaccompanied minors in a dedicated waiting area in Paris Charles de Gaulle airport for an initial four days, extendable twice for eight days (thus potentially almost three weeks in total). The Committee also finds a State-sanctioned practice of sending unaccompanied minors detected at the Italian border back to Italy.

The Committee concludes that the airport practice amounts to a deprivation of liberty contrary to Article 37(b) CRC. It recommends that France end airport detention and ensure that alternatives to detention are applied.

Grave and systematic violations

Article 13 of OPIC requires the Committee to assess whether the rights violations are grave or systematic. Key to the assessment of gravity is the scale of the violations and whether they have caused substantial harm. The Committee finds that the physical and mental health and development of a large number of unaccompanied migrant children, particularly those living precariously in camps and on the streets, have been affected in a serious and lasting way, meeting the threshold of gravity. When assessing whether the violations are systematic, the Committee considers whether they are organised, as opposed to random or isolated. Here, owing to France’s repeated failure as a matter of practice to protect unaccompanied migrant children living in camps and on the streets over long periods, the Committee finds that the systematic nature of the violations is established.

The Committee goes on to attach these findings to the treatment of the following groups of unaccompanied migrant children: young people claiming to be children but assessed to be adults and left destitute while awaiting appeal; those living in camps, on the streets or in hotels without adequate supervision from child protection services; those trying to reach the UK by boat, for whom there are no services whatsoever; those denied entry to the child protection system who are left without access to mental health services despite having suffered significant trauma in their country of origin or en route to France; those deprived of their liberty in airports and border-holding centres; those exposed to flawed age assessment procedures that fail to prioritise the best interests of the child, adopt a multidisciplinary approach, provide guardianship or provide legal aid and information; and those who were expected to prove the authenticity of their identity documents or whose age was determined by X-ray examination.

Notably, despite its finding of violations of Article 2(1), the Committee did not find that these violations reached the Article 13 threshold for gravity or systematicity.

Commentary

The Committee’s findings will come as no surprise to anyone who has read its concluding observations to France in 2023 or its views in the case of U.A. v France or S.E.M.A. v France, which hinted at grave and systematic violations of the rights of unaccompanied migrant children in France – this being now confirmed. The Committee consolidates its settled jurisprudence in these and the Spanish cases on how improper age assessment and sub-standard protection of unaccompanied minors engage various articles in the CRC, adding nuance and detail to how unaccompanied minors should properly be treated. Rather than discuss this consolidation, which has been the subject of previous case-notes, this commentary focuses on novel legal developments and on issues that the Committee may have overlooked.

For the first time, the Committee considers that the treatment of unaccompanied migrant children who are assessed to be adults (or unidentified) and thus rendered street homeless is a violation of Article 37(a) on its own. The Committee has previously considered Article 37(a) in this context only in conjunction with other rights, such as Article 20(1) (U.A. v France and S.E.M.A. v France), Article 24 (J.A.B. v Spain) and Article 22 (M.T. v Spain). In its analysis here, the Committee relies heavily on that of the European Court of Human Rights in Khan v France, which revealed a similar pattern of treatment and resulted in a finding of a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Curiously, however, the Committee does not extend its analysis of Article 37(a) to its factual finding of a practice of sending unaccompanied minors detected at the border back to Italy. This type of land push-back certainly seems to engage the non-refoulement dimension of Article 37(a), which, per the Committee in D.D. v Spain, requires the State ‘to carry out a prior assessment of the risk, if any, of irreparable harm to the child and serious violations of his or her rights in the country to which he or she will be transferred or returned, taking into account the best interests of the child’ (para 14.4). It is to be regretted that the finding of fact is left unaddressed.

Furthermore, the Committee refers to Article 22(1) in the context of deficiencies in protection and care but not specifically in relation to the finding that an extremely low number of unaccompanied migrant children lodge claims for international protection. Although the Committee does make recommendations to address the dearth of asylum applications, it is submitted that the finding of a violation of Article 22(1) in this regard would have added normative weight to the Committee’s position.

In a departure from previous jurisprudence, the Committee finds that the detention of unaccompanied migrant children constitutes a violation of Article 37(b). This stands in contrast to a line of cases (C.O.C v Spain, M.A.B. v Spain, M.B. v Spain, M.B.S. v Spain, N.B.F. v Spain, S.M.A. v Spain and R.K. v Spain) in which the Committee analysed the detention of an unaccompanied minor under other provisions of the Convention, such as Article 3 and Article 20(1), but not Article 37(b). This may have been because Article 37(b) was not argued in those cases, although the Committee has on occasion invoked Convention provisions proprio motu. In any event, the reliance here on Article 37(b) is a welcome development and gives effect to the position advanced in Joint General Comment No. 4 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families and No. 23 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on State obligations regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration in countries of origin, transit, destination and return, that the immigration detention of children is not governed by the last resort principle but is prohibited outright. ¹

It is worth commenting on the Committee’s assessment that discrimination in the resourcing and standard of child welfare services for unaccompanied migrant children is not considered grave or systematic. This perhaps reflects some of the methodological challenges in arriving at a finding of discrimination. For example, there is a need to establish negative differential treatment relative to a comparator. ² Per the Committee’s concluding observations to France in 2023, child protection services generally remain under-resourced despite increases in funding. This, ironically, makes the underfunding of unaccompanied migrant children services seem less bad. Moreover, the Committee does not explicitly analyse the differential treatment between unaccompanied migrant children (according to their success in age assessment or the department to which they are allocated) under the rubric of Article 2(1). This may be due to the difficulty of identifying a relevant status ground pertaining to the sub-group, coupled with the fact that the varied treatment of unaccompanied minors appears rather arbitrary. These difficulties arguably preclude the Committee from making a stronger finding, both in relation to the discrete right and in relation to the existence of a grave or systematic practice. And yet the issue of resources does seem to be at the heart of the poor treatment of unaccompanied migrant children in France.

Indeed, several of the Committee’s findings of fact chime with recent literature on neoliberal forms of migration governance in France.³ Such forms of governance include the phenomenon of relocating responsibility away from the centre while failing to adequately resource the devolved responsibility, and of sub-contracting core functions to NGOs and private individuals, which are likely to be unaccountable and under-resourced. The Committee is clear that France’s state responsibility remains intact despite decentralising and sub-contracting its functions. And one would not expect the Committee to comment on the administrative division of responsibilities in view of subsidiarity and deference to State sovereignty. Nonetheless, it is submitted that the Committee could have made clearer recommendations on the resource implications of devolution, especially in light of General Comment No 19.

In all, the Committee’s finding that France has committed grave and systematic violations of numerous violations of CRC rights in its treatment and neglect of unaccompanied migrant children is stark. The observations of France to the Committee’s confidential report in September 2025 signal a good faith engagement with the Committee and a commitment to fully implement relevant national legislation. However, in light of France’s failure to abide by interim measures in both S.E.M.A. and U.A., and the decision of the French Council of State in July 2025 denying the relevance and binding character of the decisions taken by the Committee against the French government, the jury is out on the extent to which France will act upon the Committee’s recommendations.