A/HRC/29/41 exponentially since the Special Rapporteur started presenting such data to the Human Rights Council. 24. To stem the exodus, a more holistic approach is required, which looks at long-term solutions that place human rights as the nucleus while creating new opportunities for all, in particular for young people. As the Special Rapporteur has indicated previously, the international community needs to expand channels of legal migration to reduce irregular migration in order to counter human smuggling and trafficking, while treating victims humanely (see A/HRC/23/53, para. 108 (c)). F. Unaccompanied minors 25. The plight of unaccompanied Eritrean minors crossing international borders is becoming increasingly visible, revealing a population characterized by its heightened vulnerability. Eritrean minors, usually males between 12 and 17 years of age, manage the journey across the borders into neighbouring countries, and then through the desert and across the Mediterranean Sea. On reaching Italy, many keep moving north. 26. In 2013, the Special Rapporteur met hundreds of those unaccompanied minors in a refugee camp across the border from Eritrea; she met a few further afield in Tunisia, and some in Milan, Italy, in September 2014. At risk of falling prey to many forms of abuse, including sexual, economic and criminal, these minors represent a group with special protection needs. Since her first encounter with children in such situations, she has continued to bring their predicament to the attention of the international community. 10 27. In conversations with unaccompanied Eritrean minors, the Special Rapporteur tried to understand why they were on the move. The reasons they provided included the following: (a) fear of forced conscription into the national service, with a high number of children leaving before their recruitment, thus accounting for the majority of young males between 12 and 17 years of age; (b) avoidance of the giffas, or round-ups, before forceful recruitment into the military, especially in the cases of those who were less academically able; (c) hopelessness, as they envisaged a life with no prospects other than the military, since most of them had older siblings and even a parent or other family members serving; (d) family disintegration; (e) difficulties faced by child-headed households in the long absence of parents who were either away in the military service, incarcerated or in exile; (f) fears of facing the same ordeal as their parents, in particular among those who witnessed their parents being incarcerated on the basis of their religious affiliation; (g) lack of educational opportunities; (h) desire to follow friends, and peer pressure, as their role models had left already; and (i) desire to join family members already abroad.11 28. The consequences of these risky journeys across international borders, the desert and the sea are too dire to bear and the impact on unaccompanied minors could be everlasting, leaving them scarred for life. They are exposed to new threats along the way, which are even more horrendous than what they have already been subjected to.12 10 11 12 8 See A/HRC/23/53, para. 72; Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “We know how many Eritrean children reach Europe on their own, but not how many die trying – UN Expert”, press release, 28 October 2014. Available from www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=15231&LangID=E. Parents who had left young children behind a few years before when they fled were making arrangements, financial and other, for reunion with their children. The Special Rapporteur received reports that five Eritrean children, who had been held captive by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant but managed to escape, were allegedly eyewitnesses to the recent