Report Launch with Save the Children: “Crossing Lines: Realities of Migrant Children and EU External Borders.”

Authors (in alphabetical order): Jennifer Allsopp, Anne-Lise Dewulf, Federica Toscano, Lina Vosyliūtė, and Helena Wacko.

Approximately 30 million children are on the move worldwide, representing nearly half of all displaced people. According to Eurostat, in 2024, 234,670 first-time asylum applicants were children, accounting for 25. 7% of the total number of first-time asylum applicants recorded in the EU. In 2024, the average proportion of unaccompanied children seeking asylum accounted for 16% of all children seeking asylum in Europe.

Each year, more than 300,000 children are born as refugees, facing disproportionate risks at every stage of their journey. 

As part of our ongoing commitment to migrants’ and children’s rights, Heartwarmingly Consultancy had the honour of partnering with Save the Children to co-create the report “Crossing Lines: Realities of Migrant Children and EU External Borders.”

Drawing on field research across Greece, Italy, Spain ( with a focus on the Canary Islands), Poland, and Finland, the research highlights children’s testimonies of treacherous journeys, their treatment upon arrival at the EU borders, as well as their hopes, aspirations, and resilience through the ‘Museum of Self’ trauma-informed method coined by Dr. Jennifer Allsopp.

For instance, a 10-year-old girl from Mali, who chose her nickname Safi Diabate, who came to the Canary Islands by boat with her mum, dad, brother, and sister with many other people. She missed her grandparents, who were left behind in Mali. When she grows up, she dreams of being a teacher and of buying a house for everyone in her family. She added hearts because she loves them. She also misses her grandparents, as they were left behind. She likes beauty, so she also added some flowers and grass around the houses as she likes the greenery.

In her drawing, Luchadores, 23 years, Moroccan girl, former unaccompanied child, depicted the terror of the sea crossing by depicting a shark and a decapitated body she witnessed when crossing the West Atlantic route. She mentioned her journey by boat. There were 50 people on board and only three girls among them. The trip over the Atlantic Ocean was very scary. It lasted 5 days. She even saw some floating dead bodies. One body was of a black woman. “Maybe she was half eaten by some sea animal”. She drew a shark. “I thought we would die too.”  She added: “I had some pictures of the journey on my phone, but I deleted them all as I want to forget this. I do not want to travel by boat ever again”, thus she drew a plane. “With a plane, I would like to go back to Morocco to visit my family, as I miss them a lot”.

Teau is 15 years old from Somalia. She is living with her mother and sisters in Finland. She explains that not only the journey but also life as a teenager of a different colour, culture, or religion can be challenging in a village in Europe. In Teau’s words: ‘living in the countryside sometimes is hard as there are so many white people and not many black people here. We haven’t experienced racism from adults, but with the kids, for example, if you go to sit in a bus, they don’t want us to sit with us. In school, it is calm as there are so many teachers nothing can happen there. I get questions from my classmates asking if I shower with my hijab and if I sleep with my hijab on. It’s funny for us, but we educate them. They ask if we do everything with the hijab as they have only seen us with it.’

These stories, expert interviews, and desk research point to deeper systemic issues children face across borders. One of the most urgent ones is the identification of children upon arrival and a subsequent multidisciplinary age assessment procedure that determines children’s minority of age and refers to relevant protection, services, and ensures the best interest of the child. 

Age assessment processes for undocumented minors in Spain, Greece, Italy, Finland, and Poland are marked by significant inconsistencies, racial biases, and procedural flaws. Identification methods at borders vary widely, often relying on untrained personnel and subjective assessments, such as visual inspections by police in the Canary Islands. Initial screenings frequently result in errors, including defaulting birthdates to January 1st, which shortens children’s protection periods and legal entitlements. In some cases, children who were initially recognized as minors are later reassessed due to procedural gaps, as observed in Tenerife. Flawed record-keeping and a lack of oversight further undermine the credibility of assessments, leading to systemic misclassification. Spain, for instance, systematically invalidates identity documents from certain countries, such as Mali and Gambia, while Poland’s hospital-based age assessments produce vague conclusions without clear justifications or margins of error. In Greece, evaluations are sometimes conducted by unqualified doctors, adding another layer of inaccuracy and risk.

A pervasive overreliance on medical age assessments, widely criticized for their unreliability, particularly for racialized children, further compounds these issues. Misclassification as adults leaves many minors without protections, forcing them into adult detention facilities or, in extreme cases, the criminal justice system, as seen in the Canary Islands. In Lesbos, Greece, unregistered minors are frequently denied psychosocial assessments, while Finland, once considered a leader in multidisciplinary approaches to age identification, is now shifting towards more restrictive practices. Across all countries, a shortage of resources and trained personnel continues to impede fair assessments. The research underscores the urgent need for harmonized, multidisciplinary approaches that incorporate child testimonies and and psychosocial evaluations to ensure fair and transparent age determinations that uphold children’s rights.