La transizione alla vita adulta dei minori stranieri non accompagnati

This article presents the main results of a research – commissioned by UNICEF, UNHCR and IOM – on the factors that facilitate or constrain the transition to adulthood of the unaccompanied and separated children. The research has highlighted, first of all, the artificiality of a distinction between ‘children’ (UASC) and ‘adults’ (UASC who turned 18) that does not take due account of the transitional process of becoming adults, the cultural, social and gender differences that affect this process and the vulnerabilities to which this category of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are exposed to. The analysis of the factors that favour transition paths also shows a prevalent incidence of contextual, subjective and relational variables relating to the personal resources, agency and resilience of boys and girls as well as to the networks of formal and informal relations activated once they arrive in Italy. The research adopted a participatory biographical approach, based on the recognition of the right of children and adolescents to express their opinion on decisions that concern them personally, favoured by a peer-research relationship that has seen a group of UASC who had just reached the age of majority as interviewers. This approach allowed 185 boys and girls to become protagonists with their multiplicity of stories, subjective difficulties, structural obstacles and support factors.