Seeing the relationship between the UNCRC and the asylum system through the eyes of unaccompanied asylum seeking children and young people

The rights and experiences of unaccompanied asylum seeking children living in industrialised nations are rarely seen from the perspectives of children themselves. This paper takes a narrative based approach to report on the lives 29 unaccompanied asylum seeking young people in the uk. The research from which this paper emerges explored the ways in which they thought the rights of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) were or were not being realised on their behalf. It highlights the significance of making the promises that are held within the uncrc into viable strategies of protection for unaccompanied asylum seeking children as they search for a new place to belong to and a new place that belongs in them.