The rights of refugee children
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© UNICEF Iran |
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Planting trees, Iraqi refugee children in Jahrom camp build hopes for a better future |
This week people all over the world celebrated World Refugee Day. This is a day dedicated to those who have been forced to leave their homes because of war or fear of persecution and live in another country.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has chosen a single powerful message for this year’s theme – to never give up hope. UNHCR wants to highlight the continuing efforts of the refugee agency and its partners to find lasting solutions for millions of refugees and displaced people worldwide.
In Iran around one million Afghan and Iraqi refugees remain, pending their voluntary return to their respective countries in safety and dignity. In most cases, children make up more than half of any refugee population. Not only have they suffered from war or other forms of persecution in their countries of origin, but also many refugee children continue to suffer human rights abuses in their countries of asylum.
Based on these realities, the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) accords a special attention to child refugees and asylum seekers.
Article 22: The Rights of Refugee Children
Governments must make sure that refugee children are protected and helped. This applies to refugee children who are all alone and refugee children who are with their parents or with other people who are looking after them.
A refugee is a person who has left his or her own country, often because she or he has been forced to leave because of a war, and is trying to get permission to live in another country. Refugees have often lost everything they own and have been separated from other members of their families. Many of them are children.
The United Nations has a programme that works with refugees all over the world. Governments must co-operate with the United Nations or other organisations working with the United Nations to protect and help refugee children. They must also try to find the parents or families of refugee children who are on their own. If the parents or other family members cannot be found, the child should be treated in exactly the same way as any other child who is no longer able to live with his or her family (have a look at article 20 of the CRC again to see what this means).
Try to imagine what it must be like to be a child refugee, all alone in a strange country. Perhaps you cannot even speak the same language. Maybe there is a terrible war going on in your country so you cannot go back at the moment. You will need all the help you can get. There are many children who have this problem. Even if you can’t help them, it’s good to think about them sometimes and realise how hard life is for some of our human family.
