Migration Should be Safe for Every Child

This is an opinion piece by Ted Chaiban, UNICEF Director of Programmes

At 17, Mary left Nigeria to escape a life with no prospects and no one to rely on. She was introduced to Ben, who said he knew people in Europe and could help her find work and even pay her expenses – 25,000 euros. But what started out so promising quickly turned into a nightmare.

When she arrived in Libya, her departure point for Europe, Ben showed his true colours, locking her up with a group of other girls for three months. Mary and many of the girls held along with her were raped by Ben and his companions.

Her ordeal in Libya continued for months; she and the other girls were taken to Tripoli and then Sabratha. They were held prisoner in a house, deprived of food, with no one to contact for help.
Finally put on a boat to Italy, Mary and her fellow captives had to be rescued by the Italian coast guard. Another girl on board told Mary that they would be used as prostitutes upon reaching Europe.

Fortunately, Mary was placed in a safe house for victims of sex trafficking by the Italian authorities, but that was not the end of her ordeal. People back in Nigeria continue to threaten the life of her mother unless she can pay back the cost of the trip to Europe.

Around the world, 50 million children are on the move and for many, migration is a positive experience for themselves, their families and communities. Every day, children and their families migrate for school, work or family reasons. They do it voluntarily and safely.

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Yet for other children – children like Mary – migration is neither voluntary nor safe. Some 28 million children have been driven from their homes by conflict, while many others have been forced to move by violence, climate change or devastating poverty.

Millions of children do not have access to adequate protection systems or safe and regular pathways to migrate, so they turn to smugglers, traffickers or dangerous informal routes, putting them at terrible risk. They fall victim to violence, abuse, exploitation and a lack of access to essential services. We see this every day – whether it’s horrific reports of child migrants trafficked through Libya or children fleeing brutal gang violence in Central America – it’s happening around the world.

Monday December 18th is International Migrants Day. There will be speeches and events celebrating migrants’ positive contributions to society. But the truth remains that, each and every day of the year, countless numbers of migrant children are treated in ways that societies would find unacceptable for their own citizens. This state of affairs does not have to continue – policies, practices, behaviours and attitudes can and must change to ensure that the rights of all children, regardless of migration status, are upheld.

Migrant children need more than a day of the world’s attention; that’s why 2018 should be their year.

It can be.

2018 will see negotiations and adoption of the Global Compact for Migration, a landmark intergovernmental agreement that will cover all dimensions of international migration. It is a moment for countries to agree on actions that will support migrant children in line with the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Amidst ongoing negotiations over the substance of the Compact in the coming months, Member States should include the rights, protection and wellbeing of uprooted children as central commitments in the final text. It’s imperative that the Compact charts concrete actions that firmly establish and uphold the rights, protection and wellbeing of the world’s uprooted children.
Will countries do the right thing for migrant children in 2018?

It should be a no-brainer. A child, whether refugee, migrant or internally displaced, is first and foremost a child deserving of protection, care and all the support and services she needs to thrive, regardless of migration status.

Many national, regional and local governments around the world have already chosen to take positive measures to care for migrant children.

Real world examples include the implementation of minimum protection standards for children in reception centres for migrants and refugees in Germany, cross-border cooperation to protect migrant children in West Africa, and finding alternatives to the detention of migrant children in Zambia. Each of these initiatives can be replicated in different contexts and inform child-focused actions and policy change at national, regional and global levels, actions that could also be scaled up in the framework of the Compact.

The answers are there and the moment is now for countries to do the right thing for children. The Global Compact for Migration can have a positive impact on children’s lives – with the potential to reduce the number of deaths of migrant children, disrupt the business of smugglers and traffickers, keep children out of immigration detention, and increase the share of migrant children with access to education and other essential services.

2018 is an unmissable chance for the international community to get international migration and asylum policy right – and that starts with children.

Learn more about the important work of UNICEF and how you can get involved.