Unaccompanied minors/children in Sweden
If you come to Sweden and are under 18 years old and come to Sweden without parents you count as an unaccompanied minor. There are special housings for children and youth. A guardian is selected of you come to Sweden without a parent.
At the first meeting with the Migration Office your application for asylum is registered. Your fingerprints and photo is taken. For children under 14 year fingerprints are not taken but photo.
You are asked then or in a meeting short after about your family situation, the travel here and about your health. The Migration Office often makes a first judgement of your age her. It occurs that children are registered as grown-ups even if there is documents that shows that you are a child. Then you do not get a guardian. It can be hard to affect the age assessment later.
Unaccompanied minors who have not been registered as if they have applied for asylum should first have their asylum applications examined in an EU-country where the child has family members. Second where you have applied for asylum. In the case of unaccompanied children your guardian has to confirm the asylum application and therefore you will not be informed in the first meeting with the Migration Office if your fingerprints have been found in any other country.
You are called to a meeting with the Migration Office (see Dublin II). It is important to bring as much information in this meeting because it is the only meeting with the Migration Office. A letter with the opinion from the personal from your residence with your story, health, development and how you have been handled and worked for your everyday life here in Sweden can be handed in with other documents to the Migration Office.
To this meeting you can send in and refer to reports that supports your story and experiences in the country you are risking to be sent back to. If there are information that shows that the decision of the Migration Office is wrong, for example that you have not applied for asylum in the other country, it is important to give this information to the authorities in the other country. This country should then say no to the Swedish Migration Offices request. It is the same if an age assessment has been done that means that a transfer is planned which would not have happened if Sweden had accepted you as a child.
Generally it takes severe health conditions that can endanger your health and that the sending back is a big risk for you for Sweden to try your grounds for asylum.
That an asylum-seeker wants to end his/her life, or that the health is connected to experiences in the other country is not enough according to the Migration Offices.
Organisations says that anyway it is important to show how your health is connected to experiences in the other country and that you can have need for protection from the treatment there.
It is important that health and psychological condition is taken up in the meeting with the Migration Office and in appeals. Other relevant things, in combination with this, is your adjustment to Sweden or if you have relatives. If you have relatives the Migration Office has to work so you can be united.
Age Assessment
Your age can come up for discussion again because of new information that comes in from other countries. It is common that children are registered as grown-ups or that children them self, for different reasons,say that they are over 18 years old.
If the Migration Office gets information like this you are called to a new meeting about your age and then they do an age assessment. It is important to demand that the Migration Office investigates your age through an doctor specializing in children.
According to the Migration Offices own guidelines children have the right to demand an investigation from a doctor. If only an X-ray study is used your age should not be changed if the X-ray shows that you are up to 21 years because their is big margins for errors.
What happens if you hide?
If you hide the process continues if your case is appealed. Your guardian gets information about the courts decision. Sometimes the Migration Office does not register that a child has hidden. In such case the Dublin decision stops after six months.
Normally you can count that your case is written of after 18 months if you are hidden.
Even if the Migration Office has left your case to the police the time limits goes on in the same way. The guardians mission keeps on as long as the Migration Office or the police thinks you are still in the country. If you are still in Sweden after the 18 months you can apply for asylum again and the case gets to the Migration Office again even if has been a case for the police.