Overview

• More than 6,000 unaccompanied minors are being held in emergency reception centers in the Canary Islands without assured access to proper care or protection.
• Save The Children’s report identifies the absence of specialized child-protection professionals at European entry points as a critical gap in safeguarding migrant children.
• Authorities frequently rely on radiological age tests that ignore valid passports and carry high risks of misclassifying minors as adults.
• New arrivals encounter no assigned guardians or legal counsel, leaving them unable to navigate asylum procedures and vulnerable to exploitation.
• The EU migration pact slated for June 2026 is seen as a key opportunity to overhaul guardianship protocols and age-verification standards across member states.