Children, youth and families

We are in the midst of a profound ‘returns-first’ shift in the global politics of child displacement. In response to soaring numbers of displaced worldwide –68.5 million, of which more than half are children – governments around the world are increasingly pursuing strategies that promote returns over other alternatives such as resettlement and local...

Migrating children is not a new phenomenon: children have fled their homes for centuries to reach safe havens away from poverty, conflict, and disaster. With increased globalization, escalated global warming, and transitioning economies, we are likely to see greater flows of Children on the Move in the future. While there are existing policies and frameworks...

This report assesses the impact on children of being returned from Europe to Afghanistan. Through interviews with individual children, their parents or guardians, and with governmental and non-governmental actors, it builds a picture of children’s material, physical, legal and psychosocial safety during the returns process. Returns processes implemented by...

The purpose of this study is to provide an updated overview of children and youth as specific (albeit non-homogenous) groups in mixed migration flows within, through and from the Horn of Africa. The report does not purport to be exhaustive, but rather to act as a preliminary study which identifies some of the key trends, characteristics, issues and response...

Globally, 22 million children are international migrants or refugees. More recently their number has been growing dramatically as a result of protracted conflicts, environmental degradation, chronic vulnerability and large-scale displacements of growing intensity and unpredictability. This pamphlet, a joint publication by Save the Children and the...

In the past five years, hundreds of thousands of Central American migrants deported from Mexico and the United States—including tens of thousands of children—have arrived back in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. For many deportees, the conditions upon arrival are worse than those that compelled them to leave in the...

This document provides an overview of the IOM's programmes addressing the needs of migrant children.

Collecting the stories of migrant youth throughout the region is part of IOM’s mission to increase visibility of this human calamity and to sensitize and invite reflection on the harsh reality facing these populations. The IOM, through its Regional Mesoamerica Programme, hopes that this book serves as a tool for building the capacities of government and...

This briefing reviews the sources and availability of data on refugee and migrant children arriving in Europe by sea. It finds that variance in policy and practice across European Union Member States results in stark differences in how and when children are recorded, including whether they are considered “accompanied” or “unaccompanied”.

This Manual is a generic training manual developed for Southern African countries that are facing challenges in the context mixed migration, as countries of transit and destination.

This Manual has been developed to facilitate capacity building of first line officials to establish and/or implement ‘protection‐sensitive processes, procedures and systems’, with the aim of effectively responding to the protection needs of vulnerable migrants in Zambia. The Manual was developed as part of a Joint Programme that is being implemented by the...

The Guidelines were developed as part of a Joint Programme that is being implemented by the International Organization for Migration, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), supporting the Government of the Republic of Zambia to build the capacity of national actors in responding to mixed migration...

In southern Africa, the phenomenon of undocumented child migration is now a serious issue. This book captures the voices of children who have made perilous journeys across borders of their own volition but without any idea of the dangers they would meet on the way. They are vulnerable to sexual abuse, exploitative labour and have little or no access to...

The present report is a result of a series of groundbreaking Participatory Assessments (PAs) with children living in refugee and returnee situations in Southern Africa, which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) carried out between 2005 and 2007. Its aim was to address the following questions: how children are being treated, how they...

The IOM project entitled “Assisted Voluntary Return and Reintegration of Ghanaian Child Victims of Trafficking for Labour Exploitation in Yeji Fishing Communities” was formally evaluated by the IEP Team from April to June 2005. The evaluation’s overall objective is “to measure the appropriateness and performance of IOM’s Yeji Trafficked Children Project’s...

As part of the Applied Workshop in International Development at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the International Organization of Migration (IOM) contracted a team of seven students to perform an independent evaluation of the IOM contributions to the problem of child soldiers in Colombia. The Team conducted a process...

The Children First Programme is focused on training officials and other actors on efficient and safe procedures concerning the reception, interviews, status determination and post-decision measures. Creating and strengthening national and international networks of the officials has been a vital part of this programme.

This exploratory study focuses on migrant families residing in so called family locations (Gezinslocaties) in the Netherlands. This study provides insight into the decision-making process of migrant families in these family locations, whose legal remedies in most cases have been exhausted, but nevertheless decide not to return.

This inter-agency, desk-based research aims to arrive at a clearer understanding of reintegration practices for separated children in low and lower-middle income countries.