In France, experts say the deteriorating mental health of unaccompanied minors is causing more self-harm and suicide attempts.
By Aurore Laborie and Juliette Laffont
In 2018, Adam was 13 years old when his village in Cameroon was attacked by rebels associated with Boko Haram. He was caught in the crossfire and left lying in the nearby forest, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his leg. He was eventually found by the military, hospitalized, and then made his way through the Sahara, barely healed.
Altogether, his journey to Europe, via Libya, where he was held captive and managed to escape, took three years. But when Adam arrived in Paris in 2021, it was not what he expected.
"I am constantly reminded that I do not belong here," he said, sitting in the back of a restaurant in central Paris. "All the harm that happened to us, we keep it to ourselves, we just have to live with it,” he said.
According to experts, traumatic experiences are common among unaccompanied foreign minors (UFMs) in France. The long and alienating integration process in France, where they often end up on the street, is another hurdle that can have a severe impact on their mental health.
Across Europe, unaccompanied minors are taking their lives at rates upwards of 14 times higher than other teenagers. Suicide attempts and other self-harming behavior is also skyrocketing.
No data exists in France to establish such rates. However, associations say the mental health crisis of unaccompanied minors, who make up a growing share of the migrant population, is acute. Since 2015, experts say more UFMs show suicidal ideation and indications of self-harm.
In Paris, the transfer of migrants to other French cities for the Olympic Games exacerbates this trend.
“We are very concerned about the social clean-up ahead of the Paris Olympics, which adds to already deteriorating welcoming conditions. Several minors told me they had dark thoughts”, says Naima Réau, psychologist at NGO Médecins Du Monde.
An arrival met with suspicion
Adam arrived in France when he was 16 years old. Like around 70% of unaccompanied minors in Paris, he was not recognized as such for his asylum procedure. "They thought I was older because of the way I sat on my chair and my voice. They told me all I'd suffered wasn't possible for a 16-year-old," he said.
According to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), anyone presenting themselves to French authorities as a minor should be presumed as such until a judge has decided otherwise. Several decisions of the UNCRC point to a failure of the French system.
Without the status of being a minor, which would have provided immediate shelter and protection, Adam was left on the streets for eight months in an arbitrary decision that he did not know how to contest.
"We often get very inconsistent reasons for refusal. For example, a young person will be criticized for not knowing DJ Arafat. A young Afghan was criticized for having worked in Iran, right next door, even though we know there's a lot of child labor there," Angelo Fiores, who works at Utopia 56, an association advocating for migrants’ rights, said.
According to Noémie Paté, lecturer in sociology specializing in UFMs at the Catholic Institute of Paris, more than half of all rejected minors are eventually recognized as underage. But the process can take over a year because authorities are increasingly suspicious.
“In the past, even if the authorities had doubts over the validity of identity documents, the minor was still granted temporary protection and handed to the child welfare system,” said Julie Arçuby, a psychologist at Doctors Without Borders (MSF) Marseille.
But today, "no one believes us when we come here, that's the toughest part," Adam says.
Experts find that the procedure is disconnected from the realities of being an unaccompanied minor. "Some are told they are lying because they can't tell their parents' date of birth, whereas in many African countries, people don't ask their parents' age", explains Réau.
In his case, Adam never met his mother and lost contact with his father seven years ago, after his village was attacked. "I never lied about my story, but I felt like the person assessing my age would never understand what I went through," he says.
Paté stresses that minors are asked to fit into a very narrow category. “The assessment is subjective: is the young person sufficiently deserving, will they be able to integrate easily, do they correspond to the model of the young Westerner”.
Forced to live on the streets
On a Monday afternoon in March, a group of twenty unaccompanied minors and aid volunteers gather in a small room in the 20th arrondissement.
"I'm tired of fighting," Moussa, a UFM from Guinea, exclaimed an hour into the meeting. Wearing a black bob hat and a shiny black winter coat, Moussa is part of the Collective of UFMs Belleville, created in September 2023. It is the first association founded by unaccompanied minors to mobilize and raise awareness for their rights in Paris.
After months on the street, he was one of the few to benefit from the 50 housing spots the collective secured. But he's still fighting to help his peers find shelter.
Over the last ten years, the number of UFMs tripled, and welcoming conditions worsened. "Precariousness when they arrive in France has become almost systematic", says Paté. In recent months, "we're seeing an increase in the amount of time UFMs spend on the streets, and an increase in the use of force by the police", says Réau.
The Defender of Rights, an independent administrative authority in France, warned that the situation of "migrant children is becoming increasingly bleak as measures are taken against them, with a worrying degree of indifference". MSF and Comède corroborated this finding.
In 2017, MSF opened the only health center dedicated to migrant minors in the Paris region. One out of two unaccompanied minors treated suffers from at least one mental health disorder, including depression, PTSD, anxiety, sleep disorders.
"I felt rejected by everyone," says Adam, adding "I didn't trust people."
For four months, he coped with his anger by remaining alone and avoiding talking to anyone.
At the Suicide Prevention Centre in a hospital in Lyon, clinical psychologist Edouard Leaune says he is increasingly working with UFMs, a population he describes as mentally fragile.
“During January snow days, a reported five UFMs living on the streets attempted suicide”, says Anouck Lenseigne, a social assistant working with unrecognized UFMs at MSF.
Girls, who make up a growing minority of UFMs, had until this summer been kept off the streets. But today, Médecins du Monde Advocacy Advisor, Camille Boittiaux, says that is no longer the case. According to health professionals, many girls, who have suffered sexual violence along their migration journey, are often in great mental distress and are easier preys for prostitution and trafficking networks.
To alleviate isolation and precariousness, several associations, including Droit à l'École, are trying to provide schooling for UFMs on the street. "Volunteers feel helpless and overwhelmed by the psychological state of some minors," says Alina Lasry, president of Droit à l'Ecole. In France, more than 350 young people are currently on the waiting list for schooling, which has almost doubled in one year.
"It's a real waste. In 9 out of 10 cases, these minors are really motivated to go to school, to work," says Aspis.
Inadequate access to healthcare services
Adam arrived in France with bullet shards in his right knee, wounds he’d obtained during the attack on his village that hadn’t healed properly. But since he was neither recognized as a minor nor an adult, accessing healthcare was challenging.
“I couldn’t sit,” Adam said.
Eight months later, in an appeal process, a judge ruled that Adam was a minor. He was finally hospitalized and is still seeing a psychologist.
Experts acknowledge that providing medical or psychological follow-up is complicated. "Those discharged from psychiatric hospitalization are put back on the street, even though they are under very strong treatment", explains Lenseigne (MSF).
At the Robert Debré pediatric Hospital in Paris, psychiatrist Emmanuelle Peyret has helped UFMs since 2015. 60% of the children and young people she sees suffer from PTSD. She says she is alarmed by the upsurge of cases of young people coerced into human trafficking taking place since the beginning of 2024.
"It's a tsunami and it's chilling," she confides.
In a sea of precarity, fear and hopelessness, NGOs and volunteer associations are often a UFM’s only lifeline.
"Utopia 56 is my family now," Adam says, his somber face splitting into broad grin.
Since he was recognized as a minor, Adam has been able to go to school and now plans to complete a professional baccalaureate. Leaving the restaurant, he makes his way back to his studio in the 20th arrondissement, planning to write music and sing.
"I need music to fall asleep and to wake up – it helps me heal," he says, a twinkle in his eyes.
Adam's days living on the street are over. But another thirty UFMs, unrecognized as minors, will be left alone on the streets of the Paris region the very next morning.
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