Chapter 10: “Caught in a Flow of Water”

Eylem Binboga who arrived, aged twelve, from Turkey in 1987.

Thirty years after Eylem arrived in Britain in 1987 she still resented she had no say in either her parents’ migration or her own. She did not want to leave Turkey. Now she thinks she would have found it difficult as a woman in Turkey had she stayed – she would have married early and not had the freedom she has now, married to a man of her choice and having children later in life after studying art and running her own business. Does this throw up questions as to how far, and at what age ,children’s rights, as outlined by UNHCR and involving children in life-changing decisions, can be applied to issues of migration?