All I want is to land!

ALL I WANT IS TO LAND! is the final report from Utanpapper.nu, a helpline for undocumented children. This project was operated by Save the Children Sweden for two years.

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“All I want is to land!” also is how a ten year old boy rapped at a summer camp for undocumented children. His poem has given the report its name, as it reflects the unsecure state between hope and despair that characterizes the life of the undocumented child.

In the report we meet some of the 470 children and young adults who, directly or indirectly, came in contact with the helpline from different places in Sweden. Their experiences of broken families, fear for deportation and lack of rights in Sweden are described in examples and quotations, and also by extensive documentation of who they are, what they need and how they became undocumented.

The report contains advice on how to support undocumented children, voluntarily or professionally. There is also a chapter about children in migration, and which consequences could follow if migrating children are always held up as victims.

The fact that undocumented children certainly are victims of war, repression and migration policy, but also individuals with rights, hope and dreams of the future, is present throughout the report. Angela, 15, put it in these words:

“I have done well at school now and my friends are there and Hasse my teacher. I don’t want it to start all over again that I can’t go to school, I want to start ninth grade and that all be normal. I live here.”