Unaccompanied Minor Refugees’ Vulnerabilities in Sweden: Testimonials from a Voluntary Support Network
Unaccompanied Minor Refugees’ Vulnerabilities in Sweden: Testimonials from a Voluntary Support Network

Author(s): Amber Horning, Sara Jordenö, Tanja Dejanova
Subject(s): Migration Studies, Asylum, Refugees, Migration as Policy-fields
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Unaccompanied; Minor Refugees; Vulnerabilities in Swedan; Voluntary Support;
Summary/Abstract: The Vocational and Voluntary Network #VISTÅRINTEUT (Eng. “We Can’t Stand It”, abbreviated: VSIU) was founded in September 2016 by a teacher, two social workers, and an educator. Using Facebook as a way to connect across Sweden, the VSIU network includes nearly 11,000 professionals and individuals who meet and support UMRs. The VSIU network includes teachers, social workers, physicians, psychologists, guardians, welfare officers, counselors, school nurses, and others who came in contact with UMRs at their places of work or in their communities. The VSIU network works to support UMRs in Sweden by organizing protests in connection to deportations, by helping to appeal asylum cases and providing support in the process, by alerting media and the UN to the injustices in the asylum processes and documenting how Swedish society is denying UMR’s their fundamental human rights. Most of all, they voluntarily provide housing and emotional support to UMRs. The VSIU network took on the role of the State that, in many cases, stopped providing support for UMRs when Sweden deemed that they were 18 or denied their asylum cases.

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