From the Executive Summary of the study:

"The phenomenon of unaccompanied minors claiming asylum in the EU has become a more visible problem. The increasing extent and weight of the problem was also identified in the Frontex Annual Risk Assessment (ARA) 2009. Member States’ replies to the CIREFI* questionnaire on unaccompanied minors claiming asylum sent out in the second half of 2009, form the backbone of this Frontex study. The survey covered the year 2008 and the first half of 2009. However, the data provided by Member States was often incomplete and sometimes even misleading. The initial dataset was complemented with statistics from the European Migration Network (EMN). Additional requests for information were also sent to some Member States to validate the data. Furthermore, information was gathered from Frontex-coordinated joint operations, European Agencies (Europol and the Fundamental Rights Agency), international organisations such as the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), International Organisation for Migration (IOM), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and non-governmental organisations (Payoke)."

This study is available in English only.

Author: Frontex