Practices to Implement Guideline 12

Practices to Implement Guideline 12: Establish clear referral procedures among stakeholders

It is important to involve various stakeholders with specific skills to address the diverse needs of migrants. Referral procedures are suggested to connect migrants with appropriate assistance. For instance, child migrants benefit from experts in children's rights and domestic workers from advocates specializing in those fields. Consular officers and international organizations can help with identity documents. Local actors are best positioned to provide immediate services, and international humanitarian actors should work through local systems. The suggested practices include identifying migrants with special needs, referring them to relevant protection mechanisms, deploying experts to assess needs, and involving specialized organizations for trafficking victims, children, etc.

Multiple Stakeholders

Identification of migrants with particular needs

The identification of migrants with particular needs is a prerequisite to the activation of referral systems. Migrants who may need specialized services include children (who may be unaccompanied or separated), pregnant women, chronically ill migrants, disabled migrants, elderly migrants, single-headed households, victims of sexual or gender-based violence, victims of trafficking and other forms of exploitation, ethnic, racial, religious, and other minorities, migrants in an irregular immigration situation, and migrants in detention. The following actions can help to identify migrants with special needs:

• Deploying specialized teams with technical expertise and skills to the host State;
• Designating focal points or units within organizations to address special assistance
• needs;
• Carrying out assessment and profiling exercises in at-risk locations, such as transit or holding points for migrants in irregular situations, informal places of employment, displacement camps, informal settlements, or formal and informal health facilities;
• Using targeted profiling and needs assessment tools;
• Establishing information sharing channels with hotlines and complaint mechanisms;
• Training staff providing direct assistance to crisis-affected persons and communities, including crisis response personnel, health practitioners, volunteers, case managers, camp managers, and staff conducting assessments or working on communication and awareness-raising.

Referral of refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless persons to relevant protection mechanisms

Refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless persons often move along the same routes as migrants.
Stakeholders should establish functional referral procedures with national or international
protection mechanisms for refugees and stateless persons. To ensure that referrals function
effectively, factors to consider include:

• Defining relationships between stakeholders assisting migrants and the relevant State’s asylum mechanism, through a memorandum of understanding or standard operating procedures where possible, or more ad hoc arrangements;
• Designating referral focal points to ensure swift communication;
• Disseminating multi-lingual, accessible, and illiterate-sensitive information on procedures to apply for asylum through leaflets, social media, or radio communications;
• Screening procedures to ensure rapid identification of needs. Preliminary screening requires a general assessment of whether a person seeking assistance is also in need of asylum;
• Emergency training for first responders (where such training has not been provided during the pre-crisis phase), including relevant government authorities, international
  organizations, or civil society with relevant mandates;
• Procedures to refer stateless persons, who cannot return to their place of former habitual residence, to relevant national authorities or UNHCR;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure that best interest of the child is a primary consideration in the choice of referrals made for unaccompanied or separated children;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure referral procedures respect confidentiality, since information relating to persons referred to asylum systems should not be shared with State of origin officials;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure that referrals between stakeholders and either local asylum systems or UNHCR are based on the informed consent of the individual. Informed consent may also be required for the transfer of personal information between referring entities and third parties.

Referrals to civil society and international organizations with specialized expertise

Certain organizations have specific mandates and unique skills and expertise to effectively address the needs of particular migrants (e.g., to assist children or victims of trafficking). Factors to consider in establishing functional referral systems include:

• Identifying civil society or international organizations operating in the host State who have particular mandates or expertise and establishing procedures or ad hoc arrangements to refer cases and facilitate predictability;
• Designating referral focal points to facilitate swift communication;
• Creating screening procedures to ensure rapid identification of needs;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure that best interest of the child is a primary consideration in the choice of referrals made for unaccompanied or separated children;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure that referral procedures respect confidentiality and are made with the informed consent of the individual;
• Providing financial and logistical support to accommodate additional caseloads or services.

Referral mechanisms for unaccompanied or separated migrant children

Stakeholders should establish functional referral procedures with national and international authorities, and organizations with specific mandates to ensure children receive targeted assistance that addresses their specific protection concerns. Factors to consider in establishing functional referral systems include:

• Developing cooperation and referral procedures among relevant national and local
• authorities, civil society, and international organizations;
• Increasing authorities’ awareness and understanding of referral procedures for unaccompanied or separated children;
• Establishing screening procedures to determine whether a child is unaccompanied or separated and to identify and verify relationships with accompanying adults;
• Ensuring immediate referral of identified unaccompanied or separated children to pertinent child protection actors in order to meet needs relating to care, safety, education, and health;
• Adopting safeguards to ensure that best interest of the child is a primary consideration in the choice of actions, referrals, and protection provided to unaccompanied or separated children, including consultation with the child according to age and maturity, assignment of a guardian, and where necessary, an interpreter.

Referral to local or host State service providers

Host State authorities or other local actors may provide services, such as temporary shelter,
food, relocation, medical assistance, or facilities to contact family, to all those displaced by a
crisis. Organizations, employers or States of origin who have contact with migrants can refer
migrants to locally available assistance and services.