Children and Youth

With the aim of intensifying cooperation on migration issues, Germany and Egypt signed an Agreement on Bilateral Dialogue on Migration on 27 August 2017. Through the agreement, the two countries seek to work together to tackle the reasons why people migrate to Europe and stres the importance of investing in professional training for young people.

The Agreement includes both closer economic cooperation, as well as support for the Egyptian education sector and additional scholarships for young Egyptians to study in Germany.

The objective of the MoU is to determine responsibilities and provide common guidelines for all related government agencies in an effort to integrate procedures on non-detention of migrant children under the age of 18.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) is partnering with the Ministry of Manpower of the Arab Republic of Egypt to address youth employment in line with Egypt’s Sustainable Development Strategy – Egypt’s Vision 2030. 

In 2014, Mexico updated its laws, incorporating the norms of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, directly prohibiting immigration detention of children. This step forward for children and migrants rights necessitated a need to look for ways to implement alternatives to detention for immigrant children in Mexico. To do this, Mexico has established a national working group bringing together all releveant implementers - including child right authorities, CSOs, goverrnment departments, and UN Agencies. 

The PROGUARD project in the European Guardianship Network is a promising project to strenghten effective guardianship and cross-border coordination across Europe. 

The provision of quality guardianship to unaccompanied children is key if they are to receive an appropriate level of care and protection and if they are to achieve their full potential. Quality guardians can play complementary roles of ensuring that all decisions are made in the best interests of the child and contributing to the provision of safe and effective decision making by State actors.

The West Africa Network for the protection of children focuses on ensuring a continuum of services are delivered across the region within and eight-step procedure, ranging from the identification of a vulnerable child and provision of emergency care to their successful social re-integreation.

The Philippines has national and local policies and programmes for children and families left behind. These include inclusion of family members in pre-departure orientation seminars; monitoring of children and families' well-being and government support to those who stay behind, including legal, social and financial assistance to households with absent parents. 

In the UK, there are workshops for young migrants to teach skills such as campaigning on key issues:

Thailand developed a comprehensive data collection system to support migration policies, including integrating migration and child-focused topics in censuses and making the best possible use of administrative data.

In 2014, Morocco adopted the National Immigration and Asylum Strategy. It is in this context that the new Hijra wa Himaya project, co-funded by the European Union and UNICEF, promotes the rights of migrant children in Morocco.

Context

The number of children traveling alone across borders has been increasing since 2010. It accounts for 10% of all migrants.