The lives of children on the move in the policy debate: Are their voices influencing policy? 

Ignancio Parker - Secretary General of the Terre des Hommes International Federation
Migration Policy Practice (IOM)
Jan 2014 

The High-level Dialogue (HLD) on International Migration and Development has not left children behind but, as the tragedy of Lampedusa was there to remind policymakers, a lot remains to be done, indicating the high relevance of the coordinated efforts by civil society organizations (CSOs).

Civil society brought to the HLD on 3 and 4 of October 2013 a unity message, one carved out of national and regional consultations. This has included an eight-point agenda to work with governments over a five-year period,2 and which brings about substantive change, to demonstrate commitments and to bring an end to the globalization of indifference.

This is an agenda where children have not been left out. An agenda built around the synergies created during the civil society days of the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) and the interactions at the GFMD with governments. One built with intense and open civil society interactions and strategic moves at the national, regional and global levels. One prepared with leadership generating a proposal at the HLD Hearings in New York on 15 July and to the HLD. The proposal is without precedent in depth and specifics. Civil society came to the HLD more prepared to discuss with governments. Civil society came with a greater degree of optimism that, in fact, CSOs are making major changes.

In addition to the time allocated to the issue of children at the plenary session of the HLD, four events on children on the move were organized as HLD side events or as events at the People’s Global Forum. The Inter-Agency Group on Children on the Move, in collaboration with IOM Missions in Italy, Mexico and the Philippines, organized a high-level event. In addition, an HLD side event on alternatives to child detention coordinated by the International Detention Coalition and two workshops – held within the People’s Global Action – organized by the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), Terre des Hommes and the Destination Unknown campaign (Box 2) – reminded of the social resistance, continued indifference and lack of efficient responses to ensure protection and dignity of children on the move.

Apart from the experts’ voices and the debates brought by these events, the views and opinions of Saleh, Fattah, Mamadou, Farah (Box 1), Kavilas, Singrad and other children were heard. The voices of these children who were not given protection measures in their search for a better future were shared through short documentaries4 for the policy dialogue in New York. Unlike the children on the move lost at sea, these children featured during the events can still speak out and call for respect for the rights of all children.

At the HLD, UN Member States adopted a declaration that did not leave children behind. This seems obvious but, until very recently, the global agenda was ignoring children and the social cost of migration on families and children. UN Member States committed to “protect the human rights of migrant children, given their vulnerability, particularly unaccompanied migrant children, and to provide for their health, education and psychosocial development, ensuring that the best interests of the child are a primary consideration in policies of integration, return and family reunification”.

The second HLD represents a significant advance for how the issues of children affected by migration are approached. Children are now visible on the agenda and there is a growing focus on the most urgently needed changes in current policies and practices.

One of the many urgent current policy challenges is making the case for migration in the post-2015 agenda. In these crucial months of debate on the post-2015 at the global and national levels, CSOs are engaged in making the case for migration in the development agenda and to reaffirm the critical importance of child protection with a specific concern for children on the move.

Box 1: Destination Unknown Campaign Destination Unknown is an international campaign to protect children on the move coordinated by Terre des Hommes. To date, over 40 organizations have joined forces under this campaign to develop protection mechanisms for children on the move, raise awareness of, and advocate the campaign messages for policy change. See www.destination-unknown.org<.

Box 2: Views and Opinions of Children – Farah’s Unknown Destination “My aspirations and hopes for my future and for the one of other children and youth is that, if I have learned something through my experience (and I have lived through prison, the desert, being shot at, to being accused of something I did not do, to be stereotyped), the only solution of getting out of this cycle of poverty and pain is education.” (August 2013, Farah, 18 years old, Somali refugee in Malta) Listen to Farah on http://destination-unknown.org/farahs-destination-unknown</.

To read the full issue of Migration Policy Practice, by IOM, click here.<