UNCRC: Migration and Children’s Rights (Essay Sample)

UNCRC: Migration and Children’s Rights
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UNCRC: Migration and Children’s Rights
Almost half of the world’s 244 million international migrants are children. Child migration stems from a plethora of reasons including conflict and violence, abuse, forced conscription, and hopelessness about educational and future work prospects (Golash-Boza & Menjívar, 2012). Displacement, national or international, has many implications for children, including the lack of access to basic provisions and disruption of their formal education. Refugee, stateless, and internally displaced children are at a higher risk of violence, exploitation, neglect, abuse, and trafficking than adults. Refugee children often witness and experience disturbing events such as separation from their families, which have long-term psychological consequences as they develop from infancy, through childhood and adolescence, to adulthood. Central to responding to displaced children’s specific needs and protecting them from the unique risks they face is safeguarding their rights. The rights of children are enshrined in international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). This submission explores the extent to which the CRC provides a framework for adequately responding to child problems in the context of migration and challenges to realizing the CRC rights for migrant children.