Children on the Move in Mexico and Central America Appeal
Humanitarian Action for Children
UNICEF’s Humanitarian Action for Children appeal helps support the agency’s work as it provides conflict- and disaster-affected children with access to water, sanitation, nutrition, education, health and protection services. Return to main appeal page.
Children on the move in Mexico and Central America snapshot
Appeal highlights
- Increased and multidirectional migration flows across Mexico and Central America are compounding a humanitarian crisis for children on the move across the subregion. This is a protection crisis. Facing tightened border controls, more families and children travel irregular routes. The journeys can be extremely perilous – such as for those crossing through the Darien Gap – and entail a high risk of abuse, exploitation, and family separation. This threatens children's growth, and their development and well-being.
- The situation of children on the move and vulnerable communities in the subregion is exacerbated by the growing exposure to natural hazards and other effects of climate change, resulting in eroded livelihoods and income sources, malnutrition, and food insecurity. UNICEF estimates that 4 million children will need humanitarian assistance in Mexico and Central America in 2023.
- UNICEF requires US$142.3 million to provide humanitarian assistance to 2 million people (including 733,000 children) along migratory paths and in vulnerable communities and to support governments and partners in building better shock-responsive systems.
Key planned targets for 2023
112,184 children and women accessing primary health care
264,162 women and children accessing gender-based violence mitigation, prevention, response
130,670 children accessing formal or non-formal education, including early learning
653,999 people accessing a sufficient quantity and quality of water
Funding requirements for 2023
Country needs and strategy
Humanitarian needs
The increased flow of children on the move continues in Central America and Mexico. The movement has become multidirectional, with more families and children returning (both forced and voluntary) and traveling along irregular routes due to tightened border controls. This puts children at risk of abuse, exploitation, and family separation. Children’s growth, development, and well-being are under threat in what is truly a children’s crisis.
The recovery from the pandemic has been slow and unequal. Poverty remains high, and extreme poverty is expected to worsen in 2023. The situation is compounded by the global disruption of supply chains and inflation triggered by the war in Ukraine and the residual effects of natural hazards. This all challenges access to food, goods, and essential services for the poorest, most shock-prone, migrant families and host communities. In some countries, such as Costa Rica and Mexico, thousands of migrants are settling down each year, adding pressure on the existing services.
Between October 2021 and September 2022, more than 152,000 encounters with unaccompanied children were recorded by authorities at the southwestern border of the United States – a 3 per cent increase from the same period last year. Over the first months of 2023, 1 in 5 migrants walking through the Darien jungle were children, being the fastest growing group among people fleeing their homes under the threat of violence or migrating in search of better opportunities.
Violence is one of the main drivers of migration in the region. For many children and adolescents, staying home means limited future prospects and the risk of gang recruitment and death. Multiple protracted and compounding crises – due to climate hazards, sociopolitical turmoil, inequity, food insecurity, malnutrition, and limited access to quality essential services – continue to fuel migration and internal displacement in the region.
The humanitarian needs of vulnerable children and families add pressure to existing services, often already scarce or non-existing in remote communities or transit hotspots, and overwhelm local authorities in transit and destination countries, especially during peaks or mixed mass movements. Violence, structural inequity, and disasters uproot children and families within their own countries, and internal displacement is often considered a first step toward migration. In 2022, there were over 900,000 internally displaced people in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala alone.
UNICEF’s strategy
With multiple protracted crises in the region, an increasing number of children are migrating and traveling longer journeys in pursuit of a better and safer life. As the increased flow of migrants overwhelms services, together with partners and governments, and guided by the Core Commitments for Children in Humanitarian Action, UNICEF will invest in addressing these acute humanitarian needs – such as access to safe WASH facilities, life-saving supplies, and psychosocial support for children at transit hotspots and reception centres. UNICEF will be a partner in building shock-responsive systems by supporting the creation and roll-out of transitory care or case management models and response protocols, reinforcing referral mechanisms and information systems on child protection issues, enhancing protocols for continuity of education, supporting more resilient WASH facilities in affected areas, and strengthening social protection systems’ capacities to adapt in times of crises – including cash programmes.
UNICEF ensures that the most vulnerable migrant children and families receive humanitarian support along their journey by deploying capacities to monitor the situation of children in hotspots. An important component of this are mobile units that provide information, protection, WASH, health, and nutrition services. UNICEF also works to strengthen the capacities of border authorities and partners and supports governments’ binational coordination mechanisms, information sharing, and protocols.
UNICEF supports the systematic inclusion of cross-cutting issues, such as protection from sexual exploitation and abuse and accountability to affected populations, as well as a focus on building the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. UNICEF’s evidence-based advocacy and humanitarian action are built on investment in information management and knowledge exchange, needs assessments, close monitoring of humanitarian performance, and evaluations. Grand Bargain commitments are mainstreamed across UNICEF strategies: localization, strengthening government and local actors’ capacities, accountability to affected populations, and ensuring the quality and impact of humanitarian cash transfers.
UNICEF mobilizes its regional and global networks to ensure that adequate staff capacity is made available, including as the global lead agency for the WASH and Nutrition Clusters and co-lead for the Education sector and the regional Cash Working Group, and the Child Protection Area of Responsibility. Across programmes, UNICEF ensures accountability for affected population mechanisms and the participation of targeted groups in the design of interventions. UNICEF will continue its collaboration and coordination with other United Nations agencies, particularly with the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, and the International Organization for Migration, through joint or complementary advocacy and response efforts addressing the needs of children and families in the subregion.
Programme targets
Find out more about UNICEF's work
Highlights
Humanitarian Action is at the core of UNICEF’s mandate to realize the rights of every child. This edition of Humanitarian Action for Children – UNICEF’s annual humanitarian fundraising appeal – describes the ongoing crises affecting children on the move in Mexico and Central America; the strategies that we are using to respond to these situations; and the donor support that is essential in this response.
