#childmigrants

With bags of clothing and a thick blanket, Eritrean migrant Salma carries her entire life in her hands as she stands by a small forest surrounded by warehouses and electrical towers in Calais in northern France.

Emerging from the woods, her home for the past three months, the 17-year-old joined only one other woman and dozens of migrant men in this industrial zone to meet with volunteers and to collect shoes and winter coats distributed by charities.

Despite the dismantling of the "Jungle" camp a year ago, a squalid shanty town that housed nearly 10,000 people, charities and authorities estimate at least 700 migrants have returned to the port city and are sleeping rough in parks or forests.

Women and girls are vastly outnumbered by men in Calais, and with no shelter or tents for protection, they are vulnerable to rape, trafficking and exploitation, aid groups say. 

Hope and Pain - The Story of an Unaccompanied Minor

Despite getting a second chance after arriving in the US, Darlin Adonay Peña faces an uncertain future.

He left behind a childhood of forced labor and a family he barely knew without a clear plan of what to do once he reached the United States or even knowing whether there was a chance to get papers allowing him to work.

What happened after he arrived was a surprise. Border Patrol sent him to a shelter with hundreds of kids alone and scared like him. He met attorneys there who listened to his story and told him there was a way to help him stay in the country legally.