The purpose of the conference is to help improve the timeliness and effectiveness of protection for unaccompanied and separated children. Worldwide, more than 1.6 million children are unaccompanied or separated from their parents among populations of refugees, the internally displaced, stateless people, migrants, and asylum seekers. In addition, some 1.2 million children each year are victims of human trafficking. Without protection by parents or adult family members, these children are vulnerable to exploitation for sex, forced labor, neglect of their needs, and denial of their rights.
Timely, systematic, and effective interventions are hindered by long delays (sometimes years) in identifying individuals, inadequate training of field workers, ad hoc approaches to temporary care, and insufficient collaboration among service providers. The application of Best Interest Determinations is limited in scope, principally to refugee resettlement cases.
Last year, the Executive Committee of UNHCR, in its Conclusion on Children at Risk, identified being unaccompanied or separated as a risk factor for child exploitation, and called on States, UNHCR, other partners to collaborate and adopt measures to identify children at risk, prevent their separation when possible, facilitate family tracing and re-unification, and put into place mechanisms to give them care and priority attention.
The conference program is designed for child welfare practitioners, researchers, mental health service providers, managers and policy makers from governments, non-governmental humanitarian and social service organizations, international organizations, and academic institutions. Specifically, the conference will:
- identify successful policies, practices, and forms of collaboration among states, international organizations, and NGOs;
- raise awareness of the issue and build relationships among practitioners and researchers;
- support implementation of the UNHCR Executive Committee Conclusion on Children at Risk;
- strengthen capacities to undertake Best Interest Determinations.
- Identification and documentation
- International law framework: Respective jurisdictions and roles: govts, international organizations and NGOs
- Family tracing and reunification
- Protection in mixed migration flows
- Individual and regional case studies
- Safe repatriation
- Best Interest Determinations
- Temporary and long term care
- The role of interested adults as guardians and representatives
- Legal representation, custody, and guardianship in immigration and asylum cases
- Psychosocial issues
- Protection from labor and sexual exploitation