"Unaccompanied Minors in the Migration Process" identifies some key trends, profiles and modi operandi in this increasingly visible and sensitive group. Unaccompanied minors are usually not detected at the EU external border but discovered to be unaccompanied at their final destination, often when they apply for asylum.
Unaccompanied minors represent a particularly vulnerable group that are open to sexual, economic or criminal exploitation, including the removal of organs and as such constitute a population which should be more efficiently protected, the report finds. Though criminal networks are heavily involved in human trafficking and people-smuggling into the EU, among the exploiters taking advantage of children are sometimes their own relatives.