The need to assist unaccompanied children in virtually every refugee situation is now widely recognized. Some unaccompanied children in refugee migrations join host country foster families in a spontaneous and unorganized fashion. This has occurred in a number of refugee crises from World War II to Rwanda, but their situation, especially its legal aspects, has received relatively little attention. Refugee children living in host country foster families raise a number of vexing legal issues, including, most critically, the question of whether intervenors should remove the children to their own refugee population or leave them with the substitute caregivers. The children's plight often produces a tension between continuity of the child's present care, on the one hand, and restoration of the child to his or her original ethnic, linguistic, religious or cultural background, as well as protection from possible abuse or exploitation, on the other. This article first discusses the advantages and disadvantages of spontaneous host country foster care. It then analyses the issue under prevailing international law, especially the Convention on the Rights of the Child whose terms now constitute the normative frame of reference for actions concerning refugee children. Applying this legal framework, it rejects the idea that a single overriding response is appropriate for all unaccompanied refugee children residing in host country foster families. It concludes, instead, that placement of these children must be decided in their best interests, and goes on to discuss the salient factors that should go into making that assessment. The article then recommends actions to protect both the children who will be removed from the foster families and those who will remain.

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