"Where will I go when my caregivers leave? Who will look out for me when they are gone?" These are the questions asked by Marie, an unaccompanied refugee minor from Burundi living in Cairo as she faces an uncertain future. Aryah Somers examines the dilemmas facing refugee minors and concludes that much more needs to be done.

Mohammed Adam came to Cairo from the Sudan, separated from all of his family members when his village was destroyed in Darfur. He does not know the whereabouts of his family and suspects that his parents may have been killed, but he hopes that some of his siblings have also managed to survive.

While he now has his "blue card," the official UNHCR recognition document in Cairo, he is not eligible for resettlement according to the UNHCR. A local nonprofit for refugees in Cairo assisted Mohammed in entering a refugee run school. However, he says, "I have had to drop out of school because I have nowhere to sleep. I am not sure where I will go today or tomorrow."

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees ("UNHCR") plays multiple roles that are determinative in the life of a refugee. In 2004, the UNHCR reported that it operates in approximately 80 countries, either directly adjudicating refugee status or playing a role in government procedures for the adjudication of refugee status. In this role, it is in a position to model best practices and recognize greater substantive rights to refugees under international law.

UNHCR also facilitates the provision of basic forms of relief, such as food, healthcare and housing to refugees. For instance, in Cairo, Egypt, UNHCR coordinates and assists implementing partners in providing health care, financial assistance, and educational opportunities to refugees. As an advocate for refugees, UNHCR advises and lobbies in other countries on the treatment of refugees within their borders. For example, in the United States in March 2005, UNHCR lobbied for the creation of a National Center for Immigrant and Refugee Children to coordinate national efforts to provide pro bono and social services to immigrant and refugee children released from detention. UNHCR also acts as a gatekeeper for refugees being resettled to third countries.

All of these roles shift and contract or expand depending upon the context in which UNHCR is operating. This makes developing a consistent and coherent strategy difficult. Among the largest UNHCR operations is Cairo, Egypt, which is home to thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa including, among others, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan.

The situation of separated refugee minors in Cairo exemplifies the challenges that UNHCR faces in developing a comprehensive strategy to accommodate these conflicting roles. The failure to develop such a strategy severely and irreparably impacts the life of the separated refugee minor in Cairo leaving him, in many cases, to fend for himself, find his own housing, food, healthcare and education, and hopefully, not fall into exploitative situations.

Government refugee status determination procedures are usually scrutinized by refugee advocacy organizations both locally and globally, including UNHCR. However, UNHCR is the adjudicator in Cairo and thus, it is virtually impossible to truly advocate or critique on a substantive level. For instance, a guiding principle to any decision affecting a separated minor is determining the best interests of the minor as set forth in Article 3 of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

However, the lack of transparency in the decision-making process at UNHCR-Cairo makes it difficult to know how the best interests of the minor are being analyzed. This is further muddled by confusion over the standards governing minors’ asylum claims. Last year, UNHCR-Cairo created a Best Interests Determination Committee composed of implementing partner agencies and other non-governmental organizations working with refugees in Cairo. However, the Committee lacked operating guidelines leading to organizational confusion. Furthermore, there were misunderstandings on how to analyze best interests such that extraneous considerations, such as budgetary and time constraints, seemed to creep into the analysis.

Marie is an unaccompanied refugee minor from Burundi and she is living with fellow Burundians who offered her a place to live when she arrived to Cairo. She has been recognized by UNHCR-Cairo, but has been refused resettlement. Her caregivers are in the process of being resettled and as one of the few female Burundians in Cairo, she will be left behind to make her way on her own in the face of substantial language and gender barriers. She asks, "Where will I go when my caregivers leave? Who will look out for me when they are gone?"

UNHCR-Cairo’s role as facilitator for basic forms of relief for separated minors also conflicts with its roles as adjudicator and enforcer of refugee law and gatekeeper. This type of conflict is very similar to the conflict between law enforcement and provision of services that led to the dismantling of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. As a result, in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security is in charge of enforcing immigration laws, the Department of Justice is the adjudicator of immigration law, and the Department of Health and Human Services (Office of Refugee Resettlement) oversees the custody and care of separated minors. This was viewed as a solution that would create, at least in theory, an agency exclusively concerned with the care, custody and best interests of unaccompanied minors.

While in Cairo there is fortunately not a system of detaining unaccompanied minors, unaccompanied or separated minors are in a different situation of having to find their own way to UNHCR or have the assistance of community members to register and initiate the refugee status adjudication procedure.

Prior to recognition, which in some cases has lasted up to seven months, the minor receives very limited assistance related to her care and custody. The minor will then be granted refugee status and referred for resettlement, or granted refugee status and referred for local integration, or denied refugee status.

In the case of minors who are referred for local integration, there is supposed to be more comprehensive provisions for the care and custody of the unaccompanied minor. However, there seems to be an ad hoc form of assistance and minimal strategy on how these unaccompanied minors can access opportunities for education and long-term housing. In the case of unaccompanied minors denied refugee status, there is no assistance, as the minor is no longer considered to be within the mandate of UNHCR protection.

With this type of system, it is difficult to determine who is looking out for the best interests of the minor. The UNHCR in Cairo has taken recent positive steps towards improving the situation for separated minors by creating a Best Interests Determination Committee and by developing more expansive approaches to community refugee associations and governmental agencies that work directly with women and children. However, it is critical that a comprehensive strategy that takes into account these conflicting roles be developed to address the precarious life of the separated refugee minor in Cairo. Local nongovernmental organizations have stepped into the void advocating for improved legal representation and provision of services, but much more needs to be done.

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