Unaccompanied refugee children's experiences in migration to South Africa

An increasing number of children from countries as far as Zimbabwe, Somalia, Democratic of Congo are migrating across South African's borders in the absence of their parents, relatives or care givers. Such children face a myraid of life-threatening experiences that are different from those of adult refugees in migration. While a great deal of research covered the experiences of adult refugees, those unaccompanied refugee children generally understudied. Valuable lessons can be derived from conducting studies to gain insight into their subjective experiences. This study explores and describes psychological experiences of URC in migration to South Africa. This is a qualitative study that follows an exploratory-descriptive research design. Purposive non-probability selection of participants. Data collection is derived from individual, semi-structured interviews and is analysed using thematic analysis. The findings are an exploration of the URC's experiences include detaching from the environment, family separation and loss, psychological challenges and coping mechanisms dealing with the inner being and children's perceptions of migration