Read and explore at the latest project of the NGO CoM Subcommittee on Children in Migration, Resource List: Protecting, Supporting, and Educating Children in Migration, Refugee, and Displacement Contexts Around the World. This living document highlights numerous resources for those who work with and for children and their families in various refugee, migration, and displacement contexts. It includes practical resources, materials, and activities, for parents, educators, host families, and communities; spotlights experience, initiatives, and research; and features additional resources for policy makers. Please share this resource list with your colleagues, partner organizations, and networks.
Request for assistance: The Subcommittee on Children in Migration invites comments and suggestions to expand and improve this resource list. Please send your recommendations to childmigrationresources@cazenovia.edu for review.
Appeal to Protect Children and Families Forcibly Displaced from Ukraine
The CoM has regarded the protection of child migrants’ and refugees’ as a priority in its advocacy since its founding in 2007.
The mission of the Subcommittee on Migrant and Refugee Children is to ensure that children in the context of migration should be addressed as a holistic group and from a comprehensive human rights-based approach (on the basis on the best-interests determination procedure), notwithstanding the reasons for migration or the child’s immigration status, in accordance with the Convention of the Rights of the Child (CRC). In the several year’s of the Subcommittee’s operation, it has adopted two areas of particular focus: the eradication of child detention and the universal provision of the right to education for migrant and refugee children (Sustainable Development Goal 4), including early childhood education for those under 5 years of age (SDG 4.2). With these issues at the forefront, the Subcommittee is working to raise awareness on the protection needed by migrant and refugee parents, primarily women (SDG 5), to protect and educate their littlest children and to build a peaceful and inclusive society (SDG 16).
NEW Booklet on Children for the Processes to Adopt a Global Compact on Refugees and a Global Compact for Migration
The CoM Subcommittee on Migrant and Refugee Children collaborated with WorldVision and Caritas Internationalis in 2018 to develop a booklet of guidelines and good practices for the protection of migrant and refugee children’s human rights throughout their lifetime. The booklet offers specific references to source material on good practices in birth registration, education, health, and “firewalls” and cites specific paragraphs in the most current drafts of the Global Compacts on Refugees and for Migration that pertain directly to these core issues.
Click on the image to the right to explore this timely resource!
Other Activities/Projects
- Contribution to NGO Committee on Migration statements for inclusion in the 2016-2018 process for the development of the Global Compact for Safer, Orderly, and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugee
- Preparation for, and support of the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights’ initiatives to protect the humanitarian access in situation of armed conflicts to give assistance to displaced children
- Support of, the UNICEF 2014-2017 Strategic Plan “Realizing the rights of every child, especially the most disadvantaged”
- Visits to UN Missions to influence policy-makers to adopt a child’s rights-based approach to migration into national legislation, plans, programs, policies and practices, and to empower children to secure their rights
CoM Position Papers and Statements on Migrant and Refugee Children
- An Overlooked Emergency: The Poverty of Forced Migrant Children (June 2017)
- Positive Effects of Innovative Early Childhood Development Programs on Refugee Youth Resilience (2016)
- Providing Education and Care for Syria’s Littlest Refugees (2015)
- Giving Childhood Back to Children in Refugee Camps: Civil Society Recommendations (2015)
- Community Alternatives for Migrant Children in Detention (2014)
Recommended External Reports
- Child-Related Concerns and Migration Decisions: Evidence from the Gallup World Poll (UNICEF, December 2018)
- Responding to the ECEC Needs of Children of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Europe and North America (Migration Policy Institute, April 2018)
- In Search of Protection: Unaccompanied Minors in Italy (Center for Migration Studies, April 2018)
- Global issue of unaccompanied migrant children and human rights (Final report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, September 2017)
- The Way Forward to Strengthened Policies and Practices for Unaccompanied and Separated Children in Europe (UNICEF & UNHCR joint paper, July 2017)
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Safe and Sound: WHAT STATES CAN DO TO ENSURE RESPECT FOR THE BEST INTERESTS OF UNACCOMPANIED AND SEPARATED CHILDREN IN EUROPE (UNICEF & UNHCR joint paper, Oct 2014)
- Access to civil, economic, and social rights for children in the context of irregular migration (UNICEF written submission for the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Day of General Discussion, 2012)
- Challenges and best practices in the implementation of the international framework for the protection of the rights of the child in the context of migration (OHCHR, July 2010)
- Examples of positive developments for the rights of children in the context of international migration (OHCHR, July 2010)
- Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights of Migrant Children and Children Born to Migrant Parents: Challenges, Good Practices and Recommendations (UNICEF
& National University of Lanus, Argentina, March 2010)
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UNHCR Guidelines on Determining the Best Interests of the Child (UNHCR, May 2008)