Uprooted
Key Messages
7 September 2016
This is a huge, and growing, crisis for children.
Children represent a
disproportionate and growing proportion of those who have sought refuge outside their
countries of birth. They make up about a third of the global population but about half of
all refugees.
Their journey away from home is fraught with danger.
Often traumatized by the
conflicts and violence they are fleeing, children face further dangers along the way,
including the risk of drowning on sea crossings, malnourishment and dehydration,
trafficking, kidnapping, rape and even murder.
o
o
In 2015, around 45 per cent of all child refugees came from war-torn Syria and
Afghanistan.
In 2015, over 100,000 unaccompanied minors applied for asylum globally
–
triple
the number in 2014.
Reaching their final destinations is often only the beginning of another
struggle.
At their destinations, children often face xenophobia and discrimination, and
are left out of essential services including health care and education.
o
o
o
A refugee child is 5 times more likely to be out of school than a non-refugee child.
School settings are where children are most likely to encounter discrimination --
often in the form of insults, unfair treatment, exclusion and threats.
Legal barriers prevent refugee and migrant children from receiving services on an
equal basis with children who are native to a country.
Children, first and foremost.
Children may be refugees, internally displaced or
migrants, but they are first and foremost children. They bear no responsibility for the
violence and deprivations around them, but are always the first to be affected by war,
conflict, climate change and poverty.
The summits are not the end, but the beginning of our hard work on behalf of
millions of refugee and migrant children.
The summits will not solve everything, but
they represent an important step
–
the beginning of a substantive conversation that will
hopefully move us forward in addressing one of the seminal crises of our time. With a
truly concerted global effort we can together turn the tide of this crisis by securing the
present and future for the children it continues to devastate.
There is no alternative.
The price of inaction will be unfathomably high. Failure to
provide migrant and refugee children with the services and support they need will quash
their hopes of a normal childhood and their chances of a positive contribution to their
societies.