Corona Maioli, Susanna;
Burgess, Rochelle A;
(2025)
Protecting unaccompanied migrant youth in transit through Mexico: frontline perspectives on appropriate policy implementation.
Health Policy and Planning
, 40
(7)
pp. 719-726.
10.1093/heapol/czaf037.
Preview |
Text
czaf037.pdf Download (319kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Mexico is the world’s largest global migration corridor and in the last decade there has been an increase in forced migration of families, women and unaccompanied children and adolescents. The latter population requires specific policy and implementation frameworks due to increased vulnerability related to their age, gender and unaccompanied status, which can seriously impact their long-term health and wellbeing. However, globally and in Mexico there are reports of lack of appropriate implementation of protection measures. Thus, this article aims to explore the perspectives of frontline workers who conduct daily work with unaccompanied migrant youth. Through 29 semi-structured interviews conducted with different migration workers, mostly based in Mexico, in summer 2021, we found that possibilities for advancing child rights exist even with scarcity of resources. In fact, although workers highlighted a context of lack of resources, partly determined by a political vision which does not recognize humanity as a priority, specific skills and knowledge were identified for fostering migrant youth resilience. Knowledge such as clear best interests of the child guidelines and skills such as empathy, adaptation and recognition of agency of young people enabled some workers to provide appropriate safeguarding. However, we highlight how the contextual scarcity of services overruns individual worker capacities, leading to a lack of appropriate safeguarding overall. Based on worker perspectives, we provide recommendations for appropriate policy implementation. Results are reported according to COREQ guidelines.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Protecting unaccompanied migrant youth in transit through Mexico: frontline perspectives on appropriate policy implementation |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/heapol/czaf037 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/heapol/czaf037 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author(s) 2025. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Keywords: | Migration, unaccompanied youth, child protection, policy implementation, Mexico |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10209891 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
