Comment: The 'BBC' published a specific case Terre des hommes dealt with, which involves a Nepali boy taken in charge in Nepal by an orphanage while both his parents were alive, only too poor to pay for his schooling. Later the orphanage let the boy be adopted by a woman in France. Tdh helped the boy reunite with his family in Nepal, although the boy will remain in France and has received French citizenship.

BBC full text

Extracts: The Secretariat of the Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice (IPJJ) (...) encourages State parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to develop a comprehensive policy for juvenile justice reform as advised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in General Comment No.10 on "Children's rights in juvenile justice" (2007). Such a policy should address the following core elements identified by the Committee: prevention of children coming into conflict with the law; interventions without resorting to judicial proceedings (i.e. diversion) and interventions in the context of judicial proceedings (i.e. alternatives to deprivation of liberty); the minimum age of criminal responsibility and the upper age-limits for juvenile justice; the guarantees for a fair trial; and conditions of deprivation of liberty as a last resort, both pre-trial and post-trial.

Comment: 'Swissinfo' published an article of  the recent report of Tdh on the disappearance of foreign unaccompanied minors in Belgium, France, Spain and Switzerland. It covers the main issues of the report and  then reflects on the situation in Switzerland. "Unaccompanied minors have a right to the same attention and benefits as all the other children in care. If a child, whatever his status, and for whatever reason, disappears from an institution, every usual procedure must be set in motion: the responsibility of the institution and that of the state is involved," Jean Zermatten, VP of UNCRC is quoted saying.

Swissinfo full text

Podcast

Terre des hommes is launching at the end of this week a report entitled "A surfeit of children in Europe" which is about the alarming phenomenon of Foreign Unaccompanied Minors disappearing from institutions in France, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland. What are the main findings of the report?

Sofia Hedjam (author of the report): one of the main result of the report shows that disappearance of children from institutions is not something occasional that it's a phenomenon which unfortunately affects most of the institutions which welcome children and in some cases rates of disappearance can reach 50 %.