“Unscrupulous people posing as children”: the problematisation of unaccompanied children in UK Home Office policy discourse

Abstract

This article builds upon the premise that the Home Office holds the most significant power over constructing policy truthsabout unaccompanied children in the UK. This discursive creation of policy truthsconveys a rationality of governing that is convenedinto a technology of government, shaping the actions of those contracted by the Home Office to implement policy towards unaccompanied children. This paper critically analyses Home Office policy statements and guidance to uncover the ways in which unaccompanied children are constructed as a policy problem in the UK. The analysis reveals that unaccompanied children are problematised under four main frames: the delegitimization of children arriving irregularly, the construction of unaccompanied children as both a vulnerable burden and paradoxically as ‘unchildlike’, “unscrupulous” and ‘bogus’. Finally, unaccompanied children are discursively produced as ‘migrants first, children second’, severely implicating their access to safeguarding upon arrival into the UK.