They arrive with the psycho-traumas of their migratory journey, but the street and precariousness take them to a “new” kind of psychological disorder: a report highlights the effects of “non-reception” in France on mental health unaccompanied foreign minors.

"Sad mood", "massive distress" which can lead to suicide attempts, characterize in particular this disorder attested by psychologists from Médecins sans frontières (MSF) and Comede (Committee for the health of exiles).

For four years, they have followed hundreds of migrants in a center in Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), where young foreigners first declared adults and who are trying to have their status of “unaccompanied minor” recognized before the justice.

Troubles upon their arrival in France

During this period, they are not entitled to social assistance for children (ASE) and often live in “wandering and the streets”: “Reception conditions for unaccompanied minors during the procedure for recognition of minority increase the pre-existing mental disorders of these young people ”, write the NGO and the association in a joint report presented on Tuesday.

Between December 2017 and June 2021, 395 of these young people, mainly Africans, were followed in the MSF center, after often chaotic migratory journeys.

"When they arrive in France, some of these young people suffer from mental disorders, for the most part psycho-traumatic syndromes and depression", one can read in the report.

No-reception policy

However, "the policy of non-reception" in France favors "the appearance of a new disorder among unaccompanied minors (unaccompanied minors), reaction to precariousness". "Unaccompanied minors who are affected develop many symptoms: sad mood, anxiety, sleep and concentration problems, feeling of inability to cope, to make plans or to continue in the current situation", write the authors, which evoke a "massive and reactive distress to a stressor".

“At first subject to a first phase of major anxiety, young people then tend to fall into a depressive state.

It is then that divestments appear, as well as attitudes of isolation and social withdrawal.

It is during this second phase that suicidal thoughts can emerge, ”explained Melanie Kerloc'h, psychologist and head of mental health for these young people at MSF.

12% of young people prone to depression

There is "a set of symptoms that make a syndrome", summarizes Laure Wolmark, responsible for the subject at Comede.

Half of the young people followed in the center present this type of disorder, underlines the report.

Proof, for the authors, that precariousness and mental disorders are intimately linked for these young people on the borders of vulnerabilities linked to childhood, administrative uncertainty, poor housing, migration and isolation.

Of the nearly 400 young people followed, another third (37%) suffers from psycho-traumatic syndromes and 12% are prone to depression, further specifies the study, in the form of an assessment of four years of activity.

Places of care for all

For them, access to care is also "strewn with pitfalls", deplore the organizations.

We must "establish the presumption of minority as a guiding framework for the care" of these young people, they insist.

MSF and the Comede recommend in particular the creation of places of care dedicated to young people between the ages of 12 and 25, whose access would not be "subject to administrative status" and which would offer "multidisciplinary" care, meeting medical needs as much. and social, such as access to housing, food or support for administrative procedures.

"The objectives of immigration control," say the organizations, "should not take precedence over those of child protection."

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