‘Asylum seeker left to fend for themselves from the age of eighteen’

Underage asylum seekers who have fled to the Netherlands alone are left to their own devices as soon as they are eighteen. This is what the Ombudsman for Children writes in the report Growing up alone, which will be published on Wednesday. The young asylum seekers receive hardly any more support and are wrongly treated as independent young adults.

Guidance and youth care expire at the age of eighteen, while asylum seekers still need it. Their income is often too low to make ends meet and they are usually unable to arrange their own income, work or study. Debt, psychological problems, aggression and suicidal tendencies are often the result, while they have hardly any networks to fall back on, according to the report.

According to the Ombudsman for Children, the number of minor refugees fleeing to the Netherlands alone is increasing. In 2020 there were 986 children, last year there were 2,106, most from Syria and Eritrea. They often have a long list of hardships behind them and are usually traumatized upon arrival in the Netherlands.

Protected environment

Until the age of eighteen, the asylum seekers are in a reasonably protected environment. They receive shelter, guidance, a guardianship arrangement and they go to school. As soon as they turn eighteen, they have to manage as young adults: their own living space, earn money themselves or arrange a study. According to the Ombudsman for Children, this often does not work. They have no network of family or friends and are often alone. Without help, these eighteen-year-olds often get into trouble. They drop out of school, go into debt or develop psychological problems.

The Ombudsman for Children advocates a separate position for these young adults. With extra support until they are 21. Municipalities, in particular, must ensure this. They must supplement their benefits as much as possible because these young refugees are often insufficiently self-reliant financially and usually cannot supplement their income with a side job.

Now these young refugees are often stuck because of what they have been through. They have an increased risk of depression or substance use and only when their situation has gotten out of hand, due to high debts or serious psychological problems, do they come into the picture with the assistance. Or, as one social worker puts it in the study: “Once they start living independently, they miss the safety net they had when they were under eighteen. They ask questions within their own group of friends, often people in the same situation. But they don’t know either.”

No backstop

Social assistance benefits for young people between the ages of 18 and 21 are often too low to make ends meet. For young people under 21, the amount is linked to the maintenance obligation for parents, who must financially support their children up to that age. Young single refugees do not have this shelter. Municipalities do have arrangements to help young adults without parents. But municipalities are not obliged to do so and often do not, often out of ignorance. A municipal official acknowledges in the investigation that a youth benefit is low, but says afterwards: “We have no information that it is not possible to make ends meet.”

An additional complicating factor is a complete lack of prospects for the future. That in itself contributes to the psychological problems. A social worker says about this in the study: “Supervisors think of rules, but that is not the most important. Those young people need hope, perspective and dreams, otherwise their self-confidence will run away.”

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A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of May 25, 2022