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Passerelle, housing program for unaccompanied minors in the Paris region

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) opened in August 2018, the Passerelle project, a housing project for unaccompanied minor. The young people, taken care of in the MSF day center of Pantin, are – for the most medically vulnerable of them, accommodated in one of the two houses of the Passerelle program. These houses can welcome 20 minors in total. They benefit from legal medical, psychological, social and educational support from MSF as well as from activities organised by Utopia 56: a partner association. When their health state is stabilised, the young people join a family in a city in France within the Hosting Program "Accueillons".
In France, the care and protection of unaccompanied minors is a legal obligation. However, thousands of them find themselves on the streets, relying solely on the help of associations, because the authorities dispute their age and refuse to take them into care. After months of appeals to the children's judge, more than half of the adolescents accompanied by MSF are nevertheless recognised as minors.
Médecins Sans Frontières asks that the vulnerability of these young people be considered by the public authorities, that a presumption of minority be recognised and that these young people be taken into care and protected by the Aide Sociale à l'Enfance (ASE) until the decision of the judge for children.

MSBSTO24927

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