‘Undocumented children are triply vulnerable, as migrants, as persons in an irregular situation and as children.
The laws applicable tend to tackle their situation from a migration and status standpoint, and not from a child
viewpoint. Even when there are laws providing rights and protection to undocumented migrant children, there are
often huge barriers in practice, preventing them from enjoying their rights and protection. These barriers, include,
inter alia, administrative obstacles, linguistic hurdles, the complexity of the administrative, judicial and other
systems, discrimination, lack of information, fear of being reported, etc. To these barriers one can add that the
enjoyment of most rights are interlinked with other rights, so whilst one might provide for the right of education,
the absence of housing or health care will seriously prejudice the enjoyment of that right.’1