This page is background information, last updated in May 2002 and still available for reference. For the latest on the Special Session on Children, please go to the Special Session index.

Refugee Children - One Day We Had To Run

This event aimed to highlight the plight for refugee children and strengthen commitments from leaders to address their concerns and provide services to protect and promote their rights.

Moderator:
Christina Linner - Senior Coordinator for Refugee Children, United Nations High Commission for Refugees

Panellists:
Ruud Lubbers - United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
Marie de la Soudière - Director of Children and Armed Conflict, International Rescue Committee
Ganga Arikari - Refugee Youth, from Bhutan in Nepal
General Romeo Dallaire(Retired) - Special Advisor on War-Affected Children to the Canadian International Development Minister
Mary Diaz - Executive Director, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children

Summary of discussion:

"Children should not be made refugees, homeless and stateless." -Ganga Arikari

Ten million children under the age of 18 constitute close to half of the total refugee population of the world. In a strong show of UN and NGO solidarity, leaders gathered today in New York to strengthen their commitment and resolve to take greater action on behalf of these children. The words of Ganga Arikari resonated and reflected not only the plight of these children, but a plea to the international community to ensure their right to return to their homes and communities in safety and dignity.

Although refugee children have much in common with other war affected children, they also suffer more specifically from the multiple losses of family, home, friends and community surroundings, and the hardship and risks of life in foreign countries.

"This is the price that families are forced to pay in exchange for safety." -Marie de la Soudiere

The international community has come a long way in establishing policies and programmes to address the needs of refugees over the past twenty years, but the panel called for a much higher commitment of resources and prioritisation of the protection of refugee children by the international community.

The panellists also pointed to the plight of internally displaced persons (IDP), some 5 million of whom are of concern to UNHCR. Not having crossed international borders, they are not afforded international protection like refugee children which leaves them particularly vulnerable to abuse.

The panel called for more research to increase the understanding of the numbers of children who fall into the categories of unaccompanied and separated children as well as adolescents, two of the groups most at risk. As a result, programming to meet the protection and care needs of these two groups have been largely lacking and ineffective. In the words of Mary Diaz, "how are you going to programme appropriately for them if you don't know who is in that group?"

The panel also called for the provision of post primary education geared towards the needs of adolescents in order to ensure their development and possibility of a viable future.. To address this challenge, the High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers reiterated his support for the Refugee Education Trust initiated by the former High Commissioner Sadako Ogata in order to meet the post primary education needs of refugee adolescents.

The dramatic situation of the sexual abuse and exploitation of refugee children by humanitarian workers was highlighted during the discussion. Ruud Lubbers expressed his commitment to a policy of zero tolerance for any kind of sexual relationship between humanitarian aid workers and beneficiaries. He also emphasized the need for women to be involved in food distribution, ensuring that refugee camps are organized in a gender/age sensitive way. He categorically declared that there can be no consensual sexual relationship between refugee beneficiaries and humanitarian workers given the power imbalance between beneficiaries.

The panel also emphasized that programmes of demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers need to take into account that some of these children have already exercised leadership. As General Dallaire pointed out, "we need more mature demobilisation and reintegration programmes. Otherwise former child soldiers will go back to arms and take up the cause of destruction and killing."