The rights of migrant and asylum-seeking children and the impact of news reporting

Guest post by Elizabeth Graty Hood. Elizabeth works as a Research assistant at University College Cork, specialising in international children's rights law in the contexts of youth justice, migration, and national security. 

Since the ‘EU refugee crisis’ in 2015, the media has played a central role in creating and sharing representations of asylum-seeking and refugee children to the general public, with newspaper headlines dominated by reporting on the movement of people across Europe. Central to this has been the representation of children and young people, as encapsulated by the photograph of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi’s body lying face-down on a beach in Turkey, which was published by news media outlets globally. Despite this image being labelled a ‘wake-up call’ and an opportunity to ‘irrevocably’ alter discourse around migration, studies found that only 9% of those who reported seeing the image said that they would support more Syrian refugees being allowed into their country. 

Since this, countless similar stories involving asylum-seeking children and young people have been shared across the news, particularly in UK tabloids. In this post, I highlight how narratives from mainstream news relating to children on the move can contribute to cultures of disbelief, and that this overlooks the responsibilities contained in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and argue that the international legal framework is not developed to adequately respond to the harm that news media can cause for asylum-seeking children in the UK.  

International Legal Framework 

Although there are specific rights under articles 2, 3, 16 and 17 of the UNCRC which are affected by new reporting on migrant and asylum-seeking children, the international legal framework remains underdeveloped in terms of how it applies in this context. 

Article 2 of the UNCRC enshrines the principle of non-discrimination. Asylum-seeking children are impacted by intersecting forms of discrimination, by nature of their age and their migration status, and the position adopted in international law is that States should treat unaccompanied asylum-seeking children as a ‘child first, migrant second’. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has reflected briefly on how the media can perpetuate stereotypes about groups of children in other contexts. For example, they highlight how negative stereotypes that exist about children in contact with juvenile justice systems are often rooted in misunderstandings of why children commit crimes, and that this often results in support for tougher measures. They also highlight that State parties should work collaboratively with the media to promote a better understanding of rights-based approaches to children in the justice system.  A similar analysis could be applied to the situation of asylum-seeking children, also subject to misrepresentations in news media which could also contribute to support for stricter immigration laws, but the Committee have yet to do so explicitly. 

Article 3 ensures that in all actions concerning children, taken by the state and private actors, their best interests should be the primary consideration. Children have a specific right to privacy under article 16 which obliges the State to protect children from undue publicity, and a unique right to information under article 17, which stipulates that children are entitled to access information through diverse sources and that the State must ensure that resources are available which are free from political interests. There is little from the Committee on the Rights of the Child on both how the media should act to respect these rights in the context of children as subjects of media as well as consumers, and the role that the State must play in ensuring that these rights are respected by media sources.  

References to media in the international legal framework elaborate on its role as a tool to help promote and raise children’s rights, but fail to address the media as a source of potential rights violations. However, the international legal framework is currently failing to sufficiently clarify how children’s human rights are negatively impacted by news media, particularly in the context of refugee and asylum-seeking children.

Age Assessment 

An example of how media reporting can negatively impact children’s access to these rights is in the context of age assessment, used to determine the age of people seeking asylum missing documentation that evidences their age. This is a hugely important process as age determination acts as a gateway to access the services and resources they are entitled to, at both the national and international level.  

Narratives around age determination in the UK news media often categorise age disputed young people as intentionally deceiving the Home Office and the British public, or as liars for being unable to prove their age. Framing their status as children in this way legitimises the treatment of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum as ‘migrants first’, rather than children with specific rights and entitlements. This kind of narrative also provides support for Government policies which are more invasive and moves States further from fulfilling their obligations under the UNCRC. The Illegal Migration Act 2023 permitted the use of x-rays on asylum-seeking young people, stipulating that refusing to consent will mean the child is automatically treated as an adult. However, such methods have been widely criticised for large margins of error and inaccuracies which do not reflect the impact of other factors on aging, such as ethnicity and trauma. There have been significant negative responses to these legislative changes from both legal and medical associations and reports have found extensive evidence of children being incorrectly assessed and held in detention with adults without access to specialised support to which they are entitled. The Children’s Commissioner has also highlighted concerns about the ability of a child to give informed consent to the use of medical age assessment methods, when their decision can detrimentally impact the determination of their age. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has been clear that age assessment methods should be the least invasive possible, and that children should always be given the benefit of the doubt in relation to their age. Despite being deeply problematic from a children’s rights perspective, the harms that age assessment can cause children are rarely represented in the media.  

Furthermore, reporting on age assessment is often accompanied by photographs of children. Even when children are covering their faces to avoid being photographed, the images are used, which further embed skepticism and monopolises on notions of mistrust and pre-existing harmful stereotypes relating to youth crime and anti-social behaviour, and raises concerns about the right to privacy. 

Reporting on age assessment demonstrates how misrepresentations in news media can be detrimental to ensuring a bottom-up approach to children’s rights at the national level, by promoting incorrect constructions of migrant children that influence public perceptions and can lead to support for policies which counter the development of the rights of asylum-seeking children. 

The example of age assessment is just one illustration of this relationship between the news media, policy making and the rights of children seeking asylum in the UK. The particular protections afforded to children under the UNCRC mean that media representations are impacting their human rights. This signals the need for further research to be carried out to quantify this relationship using a rights-based approach, to improve the accountability of both State parties and media outlets to their obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the rights of all children in its jurisdiction. 

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