UNICEF: Migrant children in urgent need all over the world

About 50 million children who migrated in 2015 , fleeing from armed conflicts and violence, are in urgent need and should receive protection and access to health, education and quality services, warned the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund ( UNICEF ).

In the report Beyond Borders: How to make global compacts on migration and refugees work for uprooted Children , UNICEF emphasizes that for millions of children, “the journey to safety was harrowing.”

Refugee and migrant children are especially vulnerable to xenophobia , abuse , sexual exploitation , and lack of access to social services , so it should be mandatory to have policies to protect them during their journey, the report stressed.

“Along the journey, the treatment of refugee and migrant children is often shocking. Far too often, children are held in detention centers, separated from family members, deprived of education, forced to work in hazardous jobs, married off as children or pushed into the arms of smugglers or traffickers,” said the report.

Beyond Borders

proposes a six-point program on migrant children that urge to protect refugee and migrant children against exploitation and violence.

Germany

, Greece , Zambia , Afghanistan , Sudan , Lebanon , United Republic of Tanzania , Jordan , Vietnam , United States , and several countries of Central America are among the countries that were analyzed in Beyond Borders .

UNICEF also stresses the importance of ending the detention of children seeking refugee status or migrating by offering a series of alternatives to detention and defends the need to “keep families together” as the "best way" to protect and give children legal status.

Read UNICEF's full report here: Beyond Borders: How to make global compacts on migration and refugees work for uprooted Children

sg