Guest columnist : Dr Anne-Emmanuelle Ambresin, Physician and  Head of Clinic, Multidisciplinary Health Unit for Adolescent (UMSA), Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV)

She is young, she is 15 years old and has her life ahead of her but she is poor, an orphan and comes from Somalia. She has crossed Africa and part of Europe to get to the Swiss border. Why such efforts? To flee forced marriage or female genital mutilation. Like her, minors unaccompanied by a legal represent are a few dozens to reach the Swiss border every year. They often have lost one or two parents or have fled under threat, because of their political or religious convictions or simply because of settlings of scores. What did they do to be born the wrong side of the fence? Nothing, and that is the tragedy, they have not chosen it. However they have chosen to not resign themselves and that is their great force: resiliency.

Pleasure, richness are not the incentive of these uprootings. No, suffering is the main and principal incentive common to all unaccompanied children. They are torn between this impulse of life that pushes them to leave their country and the loss of the loved ones, their loved country. Why do they leave? With the hope of finding a refuge where they would be respected where they would have rights. In the end, they have the same inspiration as anyone: be someone, learn a profession, have a family, work.

What answer does Switzerland give to those courageous young people who emigrate to have the right to continue to exist? A paradoxical answer: in between hope and closure. In certain cantons one of which is the canton Vaud which is the inspiration of this editorial, those young people are taken care of as minors (unaccompanied home, educators, professional training) but the administrative authorities considerate them as migrants before minors and generally refuse to give them the refugee status. They then found themselves in a great vulnerability, doomed to go underground or be deported.  Note that the canton Vaud has the reputation of being one of the most clement canton concerning the refugee politics; this is not very encouraging for the global situation in Switzerland. 

For the people working in the medical field the human meeting is overwhelming. Confidence bonds grow slowly through the consultations. The healthcare worker is in permanent tension  between the child superior interest and the migrations politics of the Confederations and cantons. He is often helpless against the impact of the administrative decisions on the mental and physical health of unaccompanied children. The permit refusal often leads to an acute depressive state, an important anxiety with sleeping problems and risk of substance use. Who will be in charge of alerting the authorities on the repercussion of their decisions on the health of the unaccompanied children? 

To offer the possibility for those young people to educate themselves, learning a profession would be a good answer to try to reduce inequality they are victim of due to their origins, because a life project including a professional project is one of the principal factors protecting adolescentes. 

Disclaimer : The editorial does not necessarily reflect the opinion of IDE Board and team

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