Unaccompanied Refugee Youth in Switzerland and the 'Refugee Crisis': The Emergence of the Child Asylum Seeker

In this paper I will reflect on the emergence of the distinct figure of the child asylum seeker which has entered public and political debates in Switzerland within the last 2 years. It is a figure that is identified through certain attributes such as youth, trauma, lostness or need for protection, and it is a figure that is imbued with certain rights (namely children’s rights). While this has helped young people to receive special treatment, the question arises what the repercussions are for those who do not fit within these categories. What, for example, happens, when different notions of youth, childhood and adolescence clash and disrupt ideals of innocence and childhood? And given that negative public discourses are largely focussed on the apparent danger and uncontrollability of male, single asylum seekers, what happens when categories mix and mingle? In this paper I will shed light on the interplay of institutional expectations of what constitutes a 'proper' child refugee and the ways young people themselves play with, test and contest these norms.

[Examination of urine in the child]

The examination of urine in children can be very complex, due to the difficulty to obtain clean urine specimens in infants and toddlers. Clean catch is an easy system to obtain urine but patience is needed. Transurethral catheterization or suprapubic aspiration is useful in infants and toddlers with sign of pyelonephritis. Urine bag specimens are not useful in the diagnosis of urinary tract infection because of the high rate of false positive cultures. The 24 hours urine collection is frequently replaced by a spot urine and the ratio of the measured substances with the urine creatinine are calculated. Urine microscopy is needed for the evaluation of pathological results in the dipstick testing: confirm that red urine is due to haematuria by demonstration of red blood cells on urine microscopy, dysmorphic cells and red-cell casts are pathognomonic of glomerular bleeding, white-cell casts signify glomerular inflammation and bacteria are easily seen in unstained urine. A urine culture is pathologic if the colony count exceeds 10(4) in the transurethral catheterization or clean void. In the suprapubic aspiration is any number of colony pathologic. Urate crystals in the urine of infants may cause a pink discoloration to nappies. Urine screenings are not very useful and should be performed only at the age of 5 years or by sexual-active adolescents.