Most of this year’s child arrivals were from Somalia, which remained a very unsafe country for minors, according to the UN’s refugee agency. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

The proportion of child asylum seekers reaching Malta is growing, with 27 per cent of this year’s 1,499 arrivals being registeredas minors.

Last year, the percentage of children registered upon arrival by boat was just 14 per cent.

The statistics were revealed in an update on asylum trends published by the UN’s refugee agency office in Malta last Friday.

Most of this year’s child arrivals were from Somalia, which remained a very unsafe country for minors, UNHCR spokesman Fabrizio Ellul pointed out.

“For several years there have been reports about the forced recruitment of child soldiers in Somalia by the Al Shabaab militant group,” he said.

In a 2012 report, Human Rights Watch claimed that Al Shabaab targeted children as young as 10 for recruitment, forced marriage and rape.

Some are sent to the front line to be used as “cannon fodder” to protect adult fighters, the report said.

Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militants are fighting to establish a strict Islamic state in Somalia.

In June, allafrica.com reported that more than 350 children had been forcibly recruited in a month by Al Shabaab fighters.

Cross-cultural research indicates that young migrants and refugees are often treated ambivalently by their societies

UN figures show that Al Shabaab perpetrated 1,789 cases of child recruitment in 2012, while the Somali National Army was responsible for 179 such cases.

Nevertheless, Mr Ellul cautioned that the reasons for more child asylum seekers arriving in Malta may be multifaceted and numbers may vary over time.

Maria Pisani of Integra Foundation pointed out that many asylum seekers could be described as “young people”, but a significant increase in the number of unaccompanied minors had been observed.

The reasons for this had not been researched, “so at this point we can only speculate”, she said.

“Cross-cultural research indicates that young migrants and refugees are often treated ambivalently by their societies, granted adult status in some spheres, and treated like children in others, and the experience of ‘youth’ is often not understood or acknowledged,” Ms Pisani said.

Many young refugees in Malta must recover from the trauma of war and separation, and also struggle with daily survival issues, within a new context that demanded new expectations and challenges, she added.

Overall, 80 per cent of adult and child asylum claims in Malta this year were granted some form of protection by Office of the Refugee Commissioner.

A total of 52 per cent of all asylum claims were made by Somalis, 22 per cent by Eritreans and 17 per cent by Syrians.

Nineteen boatloads of asylum seekers and irregular migrants have made it to Malta this year so far.

Somalis made up 59 per cent of all arrivals, followed by Eritreans (32 per cent) and Nigerians (four per cent).

So far this year, 222 refugees in Malta have been relocated to the US or another country within the EU.

A further 73 individuals left through the Assisted Voluntary Return and Sustainable Reintegration in the Country of Origin programme.

The UNHCR estimates that just 30 per cent of the 18,116 people who arrived by boat from Libya since 2002 remain in Malta.

Those who benefit from protection have a right to a travel document and many opt to leave the island on their own initiative after they obtain it.