Highlights
Between January 2015 and August 2016, 596,275 refugee and migrant children sought asylum in Europe. More than 341,600 of them arrived by sea.
Since the beginning of 2016, UNICEF reached more than 67,000 children with psycho-social support, recreational and structured education activities in Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia, while some 7,370 babies and small children benefitted from infant and young child feeding (IYCF) support. UNICEF has also reached over 52,000 more refugee children in Turkey since January through the Syria crisis response plan (3RP).
UNICEF advocacy and technical assistance has successfully supported policy and strategy changes at national level, such as on the integration of refugee and migrant children in education systems in Greece, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia, strengthened protection standards at reception and accommodation centres in Germany, etc. Yet refugee and migrant children still face challenges requiring urgent policy measures and political commitment.
Deeply concerned with protection risks and reception conditions, the lack of safe and legal options, and the continued trend of children resorting to smugglers, UNICEF has urgently called on governments to build stronger protection systems for children, speed up family reunification, improve guardianship and end migration detention of children.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
According to UNICEF’s report Uprooted: the Growing Crisis for Refugee and Migrant Children, globally 31 million children live outside their country of birth, including 11 million child refugees and asylum-seekers. This is twice as many as a decade ago. Europe has seen a recent spike of child asylum seekers, recording a two-fold increase of child asylum claims in just one year- between 2014 and 2015. In addition, despite the slow-down of sea arrivals to Europe 2016, of the 596,275 child asylum claims registered in Europe between January 2015 and August 2016, some 207,0001 were registered this year (Eurostat). Two in every three of the newly registered child asylumseekers, or more than 166,000 children, are in Germany. Around one third of them are below 10 year’s old (including some 61,000 children 0 to 5 years old), and almost 26,680 are unaccompanied or separated (BAMF).
Although the proportion of children among new arrivals in Greece has dropped significantly (from 40 per cent in March 2016 to approximately 15 per cent in July), children continue to undertake risky sea crossings from Turkey to Greece, leading to a greater number of stranded children in Greece. Moreover, due to the slow pace of the relocation and resettlement schemes, UNICEF and partners have observed increasing use of irregular routes with support of smugglers through the Balkans region. According to UNHCR, at least 24,700 people, many of whom children, are believed to have continued their journey to Western Europe since the closure of the borders in the Western Balkans in March 2016. Similarly, many among the refugees and migrant children arriving in Italy often try to move onwards to other western European countries and rarely stay in protection centres for longer than a few days or weeks. According to different sources 90 per cent of children (15,152 between January and July 2016) arriving in Italy are unaccompanied.
The trend of irregular cross-border movement continues to escalate, exposing children to serious risks of abuse and exploitation, including risking their lives on unseaworthy vessels, exorbitant costs which leaves them indebted and in turn facing even greater dangers.
The pace of drownings has soared and 2016 is set to become the most deadly year on record for those attempting to cross, particularly in the Central Mediterranean.
While acknowledging that accommodation facilities for children and families are far below standard, UNICEF welcomes efforts undertaken by some Governments, including Greece, Italy, Germany and Serbia to improve reception conditions for refugee and migrant children and strengthen national protection systems to improve the care of unaccompanied and separated children (UASC) and keeps working to further strengthen and improve services.