Guardianship of unaccompanied minors

EMN Member States and must ensure the protection of children who are without parental care, no matter their nationality or residence status. Children who are not accompanied by their family are thus entitled to special protection and assistance by the State. While EU law acknowledges the importance of guardianship and legal representation to protect the well-being of unaccompanied minors, the concept of guardian is not universally defined. At EU level, even though the institution of guardian is integrated in most of the EU Member States legal systems, the terminology that is used when dealing with unaccompanied minors varies (i.e. guardian, representative). When dealing with third-country national unaccompanied minors there is some confusion as several terms are used such as “guardian”, “representative” and “ad-hoc administrator”.
At the request of the Luxembourgish Ombudsman for Children and Youth (OKaJu), EMN Luxembourg launched an Ad-Hoc Query on this topic. 23 Member States provided information through the EMN Ad-Hoc Query mechanism. The aim of this EMN Luxembourg inform is to map how guardianship systems for unaccompanied minors operate in EU Member States and try to bring some clarity to this issue.