Geographic Motivations and Approach

The concepts of childhood, adolescence, and youth correspond to a social, cultural, and relational construction that through different historical periods have acquired diverse connotations. In this regard, “youth and old age are not given, but rather socially constructed in the struggle between young and old” (^{Bourdieu, 2000}, p.164); therefore, assigning a specific category to a group is the first step in determining it as such, and in attributing a specific identity to it. In this line, ^{Gualda (2011}) stands out as significant in the construction of identities, the influence of the past in connection to memories, the experiential baggage, and the links that determine the sense of belonging.

From another point of view, ^{Suárez-Navaz and Jiménez (2011}) point out that the diversity of rituals that mark the passage from childhood to the adult world shows the disconnection between physical and social adolescence; therefore, age divisions are arbitrary, and in many cases merely respond to legal parameters, where the 18-year-old barrier becomes, according to ^{Belloni (2019}), a personal but also a family commitment. This article aligns with the notes by ^{Gimeno-Monterde (2014a}) in order to interpret its discursive affectivity.

As for the geographical scenario, Africa is considered the cradle of humanity, characterized by the mobility that is part of the history and culture of the continent. According to ^{Kabunda (2012}), the Australopithecus and Neanderthal departed from Africa. The records of archeology and paleonto-anthropology inform us of the permanent mobility of populations, inside and outside the continent, from the Sapiens to postmodern civilizations (^{Latham, 2019}). Africa is, according to ^{Kabunda (2012)}, the continent of intra- and extra- continental emigration both due to the history of migrations across the continent, and the nomadic cultures of their tribal communities. However, in recent decades, ^{Flahaux (2015}) explains that migrations have become a phenomenon derived from climate change, the global economy, the spread of the neoliberal system, or derived from armed conflicts in the southern hemisphere that constrain the processes of human mobility heading north.

According to ^{Oucho (2012}), the characteristics of migration from West Africa to Europe hold possibilities, yet also adversities. Western countries find high complexities in responding to the training, work, and leisure demands of adolescents and young people (^{Beinin & Vairel, 2011}). Relief for these States comes from the African diaspora, which is conducive to economic development (^{Osorio, Cerrolaza, Ketiti, García-Luengos, & Thieux, 2013}) yet according to Thieux (2014), it is also conducive to social remittance in the form of ideas, in the values and innovation that partake in the democratization and good governance of institutions and their replication in the African States. For ^{Ikwuyatum (2012}), the positive effects of human mobility from West Africa would be linked both at its origin and destination or during the experiences of the process. In view of this, the new theoretical approaches to push-pull migration highlight the cultural richness of immigration itself (^{Mac Gómez, 2019}), the balance between the employment demand of migrants and the labor supply of receiving societies, the geographical dynamization in the place of origin and the growth of social capital in communities, which favors positive interactions.

Conditioning Factors and Risks Implied in the Process from Migrant Subjectivity

The paradigms on the study of migration have developed into different views; some focus on the individual (^{Restrepo, 2002}) while others on the multiple dimensions derived from the consequences of the migration process (^{Verkuyten, Wiley, Deux, & Fleischmann, 2019}). A corpus has been brought into the theory of migration considering the relationship between mobility and belonging, particularly from the globalization processes that, according to ^{Wilson and Dissanayake (1996)}, also bring in transnationalism and translocalism. Despite claims on the disappearance of the nation-State concept under the global umbrella, States of the northern hemisphere continue with their border control policies (^{Bakewell & de Haas, 2007}; ^{Beauchemin, 2015}; ^{Schweitzer, 2017}) that favor the secrecy, irregularity, and fragility of the migrant.

According to ^{Oboukoku (2011}), the bitterest face of the exodus to Europe is found in the suffering and anxiety of the loneliness inherent to the trip, in the attitudes of rejection faced by migrants, in the loss of identity with respect to the place of origin and transience as a way of life, as well as the lack of public policies for reception and stabilization that may favor the chronicity of the migration process (^{Lessault & Beauchemin, 2009}). To the above, ^{Pyle and Hung (2019}) add the anxiety generated by Western educational systems based on competence, risk tests, and the impact of rankings; the scant education acquired in the place of origin and the reduced chances for higher job positions that this initially supposes in the imaginary intensifies the conflict for curricular training. On top of this, educational policies limit their expectations, orienting them towards frailty in welfare institutions (^{Horcas, Bernard, & Martínez, 2015}; ^{Mendoza & Maza, 2015}). In addition, the prohibitionist policies of developed States hinder the aspirations and expectations that first encouraged the decision to migrate (^{Velandia & Lacassagne (2012}), that is to say, “States prefer to have illegal citizens than regularized citizens” (^{Sadiq, 2005}, p. 101).

Migration policies reduce the expectations of migrants (^{Mcnevin, 2014}); these policies endanger them by reducing their rights and legal security. The strong demand for regularization collides with the hardening of the processes. This means as ^{Huysmans (1996)} pointed out, entering into other levels of difficulty such as labor exploitation, street life, and mistrust. In this sense, subjective security is compromised by the possibilities of integration, and according to ^{Strange, Squire, and Lundberg (2017}), it is important that those labeled as “irregular” become involved in this process, for them to become active subjects for whom their condition as undocumented does not take precedence to that of being human. These factors, unrelated to the aspirations to migrate, condition migration. At times, legislative changes can lead to a drift in situations of irregularity, as was the case of those events that occurred in France or Belgium at the end of the 1990s. In other words, changes in legislative structures instantly turned large masses of foreign residents into irregular and undocumented persons (^{Ojo, 2019}).

Currently, structural changes affect the economy, employment, and, ultimately, welfare systems. Society has inherited the outbreak of the 2007 crisis and the consequent market distrust during a period of decline; even the Covid-19 pandemic has further weakened resources generating, according to ^{Sułkowski (2020}), a slowing down of the globalizing trend, resulting in a “de-globalization.” Somehow, according to ^{Mainwaring (2016}), this has modified migration patterns in terms of remittances, consequently reducing them. Therefore, migrants not only resist the changes that accompany their migration process but are also capable of coping with local and global difficulties.

Finally, were the crisis not a sufficiently voracious factor against stability, contradictions appear between regularization and the labor market that puts migrants in vulnerable situations. One can reside somewhere, yet not work there. Is the migrant willing to obtain residence documentation if he cannot otherwise access a job that allows him to improve his quality of life? In response to this question, the studies by ^{Pelican (2012}) report that the migration process does not begin with the aim of changing residence, but with the aspiration to change one's living conditions and improve one’s status. In this invisible association with precariousness, migration hardens and the migrant is toughened (^{Betts, 2010}).

Adolescence, Migration, Protection: New Protagonists, Same Scenarios

Adolescents who migrate alone pose complex challenges both for those policies aimed at controlling migration flows, as well as for those aimed at protecting children, and for others related to work or criminal status (^{Navarro, Botija, & Carbonell, 2016}), second to age minority. Following ^{Gimeno-Montverde (2014)}, although the migration of adolescents has traditionally been understood as part of a family strategy, the role of adolescents as protagonists should not be ignored. Along this line of analysis, ^{Suárez-Navaz and Jiménez (2011}) report that new technologies allow for the participation and connection of migrant adolescents, and for them to assume the leading role in the planning, decision-making about and ultimately crossing of international borders. Adolescents who migrate alone do so without referential models and, just like adults, have goals both “in the material as well as in the symbolic and personal spheres -to gain experience, maturity and be considered an autonomous person-“ (^{Boubakri & Potot, 2012}, p. 126).

However, the expectations at the place of origin and the reality at the destination are very little or nothing alike (^{Jiménez & Ramírez, 2011}). The longed-for autonomy and independence clash against Western civilization and the compliance with international treaties in defense of human rights and the protection of children against the slavery of child labor, compulsory education, and the reaffirmation in the manifest guarantees of public welfare systems that must ensure the protection of migrant adolescents, at least until they are of legal age. It would then be an adult majority, which according to ^{Oboukoku (2011}) has matured with the hardships of the migration process. An old Europe that gives them back the status of a child, but robs them of the dream of free autonomy.

The Minors Protection System and Welfare Policies in Spain

Regarding the general regulatory framework in Spain, from the condition of a foreigner, Organic Law 2/2009 of December 11, reforming Organic Law 4/2000 of January 11 on the rights and freedoms of foreigners in Spain and their social integration, commonly known as the Immigration Law, as amended by Organic Law 4/2015. In addition, for adolescents who are underage without an adult reference, the norms provided for in Organic Law 4/2000 (modified by Organic Law 8/2000), 11/2003, and 14/2003, and the regulations that build on it are applied by RD 2393/2004; also the regulations that the Civil Code (^{Royal Decree of July 24, 1889}) and the Spanish ^{Constitution (1978)} express are applied, in addition to the different regional regulations that guarantee the legal protection of adolescents who migrate alone, being under 18 years of age and residing in Spain. In fact, Article 39.4 of the ^{Spanish Constitution (1978)} guarantees minors the provisions of international agreements that protect their rights. This way, public administrations must act in a subsidiary manner whenever parents do not timely and adequately comply with their legal obligations and minors lack guarantees of protection and enjoyment of their rights for a dignified life.

Connecting with this protective perspective, on the one hand, public administrations must ensure that young migrants enjoy their rights and, for this, provide the necessary assistance and protection in personal and social circumstances, in the areas of the family or -where appropriate, substitutes for this-, health, education, housing, employment, culture, justice or leisure. To this end, they must act through different welfare systems in order to guarantee access to them. On the other hand, public administrations acquire the commitment to provide public resources and articulate measures to fully address these migrations, which according to ^{Borrego (2014}) lack the professional specificity necessary for their social and educational intervention.

For ^{Quiroga and Alonso (2012}) the administrative and protection systems for minors should bet on real options for these adolescents, whose expectations in the place of origin and at the destination are divergent. They begin the process with aspirations different from those enjoyed by other young people their age who were born and raised in Western societies. The lack of a family and support networks compels them to face their situation as maturely as possible and, therefore, they would need institutional responses and alternative measures focused on emancipation and economic independence. ^{Graw and Schielke (2012}) report that the expectations of adolescents who undertake the migration process are high, and in many cases, disconnected from the reality they will find in host countries. From the perspective of ^{Schoumaker et al. (2013}), the global horizon reproduces the asymmetries between expectations and realities.

Design and Goals

A triangulation strategy (^{Denzin, 1970}) was chosen for the research design, defined as a combination of two or more theories, data sources, or research methods in the study of a singular phenomenon. We chose to triangulate the data of our informants in order to stress the push-pull theory, thus identifying the unidirectionality or not of this migration.

The aim was to identify the frameworks within which these migrations are built from the perception of the professionals who make up the protection system, and also of that of the adolescents who are part of it, so as to identify whether the protection system itself constitutes support in achieving the end of the road or rather another stop on it. With this intention, an attempt was made to research the push-pull framework according to classical theories or the new arguments in terms of creative and competence socialization (^{Mac Gómez, 2019}), or in the words of ^{Thieux (2014}), social remittances.

The research was carried out from the instrumentalization of different techniques. We tried to research our object from the approaches of ^{Massó (2011}) to Senegalese migrants: through the elaboration of life stories. We opted first to approach reality from this ethnographic technique. Simultaneously, we tried to deepen the perception of professionals in socio-educational intervention and expert academic researchers, who could converge or diverge. From both positions, we try to achieve and further explore experiential and reflective goals, that revolve around the migration process, such as:

Research and Sampling Techniques

The life story technique was used when interviewing the young migrants; according to ^{Callejo (2006}), this technique allows to integrate a subjective view of the experienced process, intro and retrospectively, by means of conducting different in-depth interviews during a short period.

For the sample selection, the diversity in the origin of the adolescents from different West African countries was taken into account, partaking of the empirical perspective of ^{Sabirón (2006}), in order to address the heterogeneity of the ethnographic process. Likewise, we were interested in preparing a sample where life experiences could differ, to know both the migration cycles, the retrospective analyses, and the current situation of young migrants.

Regarding the elaboration of life stories, several interview sessions were needed to collect all the information and later start the categorization process. They were different for each case, but ranged from a minimum of three to a maximum of fourteen sessions; 19 stories were started, of which seven were completed. Audiovisual technology was used for communication via Skype. Interviewees were contacted through the General Directorate for Children, Adolescents and Youth (Dirección General de Infancia, Adolescencia y Juventud) of the Generalitat Valenciana, a public institution for the protection of minors.

As for the selection of professionals who participated as informants, we decided to deploy a Delphi technique that constitutes an effective means to build group consensus without members having to meet physically (^{Yañez Gallardo & Cuadra Olmos, 2008}). This was possible through Google Drive. For the panel of experts, this versatile procedure can be used both as a research instrument and an evaluation of experiences and processes. It is an analytical technique that according to ^{Howze and Dalrymple (2004}) allows covering quantitative and qualitative aspects. The experts participating in the Delphi analysis (see Table 2) optimized the sheet of variables initially articulated by the research team, generating a mixed questionnaire with Likert-type questions, open questions, and a SWOT.

Likewise, the panel had to be answered by professionals-experts and, as such, Delphi members established concurrent inclusion criteria related to professional performance, experience in socio-educational intervention, and the wide geographic origin from all over the Spanish territory as guarantees of objectivity and reliability, in order to favor the globality of views and heterogeneity of participants. Following these criteria, here we show the coding table in panel and Delphi:

The codes EXP.1 to EXP.15 belong to participants of the expert panel, while the codes EXP.16 De to EXP.20 De are members of the Delphi technique. The panel with the questions to answer was sent to 25 experts; of these, 15 (60%) answered it promptly, four did not answer in time (16%), one (4%) returned the questionnaire incomplete, and no response was obtained from the remaining five (20%).

Procedure

The information analysis was obtained through different sub-procedures:

To synthesize the sub-procedures articulated in the empirical process, Table 3 below shows the goals addressed, the areas that make up the migration process, the qualitative categories and associated quantitative variables, and finally, the research techniques employed.

The table was constructed based on the research goals. The indicators provided us with quantitative data measured using the Likert scale, in which experts, through the panel, assessed the incidence of each one (high, moderate, or low). The life stories of migrant adolescents allowed us to analyze reality from their point of view, from their experiences, from the influence of these indicators at the beginning of their geographic mobility processes to Europe.

Gender parity was taken into account in the expert panel, yet the same was not possible in the panel of young informants, since this migratory profile corresponds mainly to the male sex (^{Ikwuyatum, 2012}; ^{Marco, 2015}). However, other sources such as ^{Martín-Palomino (2015}) report the invisibility of young women in this type of migration due to the possible immersion of trafficking mafias and the precariousness of gender flows.

Our research was developed according to the recommendations of the ethics committees of the participating institutions and complied with research standards (^{Law 14/2007 on Biomedical Research}). The results were extracted from broader research approved by the Ethics and Experimental Research Commission (Comisión de Ética e Investigaciones Experimentales) of the institutions associated with the study, reference CEIT17SOC221. People who met the inclusion criteria for this study received information on its goals and gave written consent, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (World Medical Association, 1964). Participants have explained the possibility of interrupting their collaboration.

Between Precariousness and Growth Expectations

The scarcity of economic resources in the family, their needs together with the lack of positive stimuli condition, as we have seen, the decision to migrate. An internal migration that in many cases advances morphs into an external one (^{UNICEF, 2017}). A new report indicates that the number of uprooted children on the African continent stands at 135 million, including those displaced by conflict, poverty, and climate change (^{UNICEF, 2020}). In addition to this, the meager economic income and low-skilled jobs, added to the effect produced by compatriots who have been successful in their mobility projects, would be the main reasons why underage young people enroll in extracontinental migration projects.

Working and improving the living conditions both their own and those of their places of origin, are the key elements by which underage migrant adolescents from West Africa undertake their journeys to Europe (^{Millet, 2008}). Likewise, and in parallel to the views of ^{Strange et al. (2017}), the need to regularize their situation becomes a key factor encouraging their subjective well-being, although the condition of homelessness is perennial and perpetuates the migration process. ^{Skeldon (2012}) agrees with our results that migration is a chronic process, and a migrant is so for life. Migration constitutes a perennial purpose, given that the decision to migrate implies leaving behind one’s roots to progress in a new life.

Our findings would also be in accordance with the study carried out by ^{Ghamari and Bartoszewicz (2020}) in the refugee camps of Libya, in which they warn that the beginning

of the process is stimulated by daily coexistence with flows and experiences of human mobility, contact with armed conflicts, economic reasons -such as difficulties in the family and young people’s willingness to contribute economically-, improvement of social and cultural expectations -working and earning money, in addition to meeting and aspiring to new challenges-. In this sense, our young informants compared the connotations of their age in Africa and Europe. From this point of view, of course, remittances become of greater interest; in agreement with ^{Osili (2019}), the results provide an argument for the imbalance that the economic expedition supposes.

Adolescents consider it of interest to improve their living conditions and to improve the status of their families in their place of origin (^{Kabunda, 2012}), yet simultaneously stress the value of their effort. They are also aware of the forced reinvention of their origin in the period contemporaneous with the 2007 crisis, in which the sending of remittances decreased, and therefore, in correlation with ^{Velandia and Lacassagne (2012}) and ^{Lacomba and Sanz (2013}), remittances improved family living conditions, especially in terms of primary needs (^{Ogunniyi, Mavrotas, Olagunju, Fadare, & Adedoyin, 2020}), yet not enough to make the migration process profitable. This is aligned with the new postulates of push-pull theories, which include in the migrant’s capital not only economic growth but in accordance with ^{Mcnevin (2014}) a situation of “ambivalence” that subjugates the material. Opportunities are not only built on economic parameters, but also on cultural, citizen representativeness ones, and so on. Therefore, the main role of the hegemony of modern orthodox theories is debatable in this migration.

Family and the Migration Process

In Western societies, the family unit is made up of parents, children, and sometimes grandparents. This model is known as nuclear family, however, following ^{Beauchemin (2015}), some general characteristics throughout West Africa define the concept of family; this refers to a kinship unit that is broader than the nuclear family: that of the extended family, where all men and women are assimilated into the figures of father and mother.

Regarding the process of human mobility, there are differences in the perception of young people and that of experts about it. Let us remember that the protection system provides the services of professionals specialized in addressing vulnerability and exclusion based on Fourth World criteria. However, these adolescents respond to a different childhood profile from that of residential places of protection or foster care. Both young migrants and experts agreed on the importance of family factors such as improved quality of life, status, and new possibilities; however, when it comes to remittances and the decision-making to migrate, there were differences.

The stories of young migrants often revolve around the moral obligation to provide well- being to their mothers, since they assess the treatment, they receive from their husbands (fathers) as unfair. The umbilical cord between mothers and children is kept, according to ^{Tabi, Doster, and Cheney (2010}); emotional parallelism is produced that connects mothers and children when they are integrated into new cultural forms, new views, and somehow “Europeanize” (p.132). In this regard, ^{Kimani (2016}) points out that in polygynous societies there is a risk of losing family identifications. In these ways, the caregiver and even leadership role of family members would be assigned to women and girls, criticizing ^{Beechey’s (1979}) theories about patriarchy. Our analysis reveals the respect of young people for the mother figure.

Conditioning Factors that Collide with the Aspirations of the Migration Process

The migration process has a starting point, but no final destination (^{Latham, 2019}). Experts have highlighted that the positive consequences of the migrations of underage young people into Spain and in their subsequent transit would be the increase in opportunities, both at the educational and labor levels and from the personal level to collective life: security, rights, wellness, etc. Along these lines and matching some of our findings, ^{Friedberg (2000}) relates that adolescents receive proportionally what their aspirations project: an opportunity for coexistence, shared cultures, and the meeting of different yet convergent worlds (^{Domínguez Mujica, 2011}).

According to our analyzes, ^{Lally (2011}) reports that the field of education opens new avenues to an interculturality that future societies will inherit for their development. For example, the uprooting suffered lacks territorial identity; in this sense, our informant follows along the lines of ^{Foster (2019}) when narrating the loss of ties due to variables such as distance, the impossibility of traveling, the labels set by the host society, the complexity of the regularization and border control processes, the language barrier and cultural differences, as well as the loss of the sense of collectivity that minimizes human contact.