Unaccompanied Minors in International Law

The contribute concerns unaccompanied minors. With the term accompanied minors we define those who are formally entrusted to their parents or to relatives up to the third degree. Instead, as to the category of unaccompanied minors, we refer to the definition outlined at the international level by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its General Comment no. 6 on the Treatment of Unaccompanied and Separated Children Outside their Country of Origin (2005). According to the Committee, unaccompanied minors are children under the age of eighteen (or under the age of majority as set by individual States) who have been separated from both parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult who, by law or custom, is responsible for doing so. From a legal perspective, unaccompanied minors are entitled to protection according to all provisions of: international law on human rights (1989 Convention on the rights of child) and refugee law (Geneva Convention). The necessity for special protection for unaccompanied minors has been recognised by the main international organizations, in primis the UN, and has resulted in the adoption of several instruments of soft law.