Children and COVID-19 Research Library

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many crucial services for youth shifted to online delivery. Yet, little is known about the processes of providing online support to newcomer youth from the perspective of the service users. Say Ça! is a community-based organization in Montreal that supports newcomer youth through language tutoring and cultural activities. Photo journals by six newcomer 12–17-year-olds and group interviews with 11 program facilitators explored how the pandemic affected the youth’s experiences participating in Say Ça!. Findings highlight key elements of online learning program delivery essential to the youth’s engagement during the pandemic

COVID-19’s rapid spread poses particular challenges for vulnerable populations, especially migrants and displaced (M&D) children. It is apparent that certain characteristics of displaced populations such as higher risk of contagion, high mobility, and being difficult to reach, present suitable conditions for a rapid outbreak of COVID-19 – at huge risk to M&D children and to the surrounding communities. It is clear that the cost of not prioritising M&D populations is likely to be catastrophic. Save the Children’s Programme Framework explicitly recognises the acute vulnerability of migrant and displaced communities and suggests a number of possible programmatic interventions. This paper, developed by the TWG on Protecting the Rights of M&D Children, the MDI and Geneva Advocacy office, aims to provide further complementary analysis, suggested text for proposal and project design, and technical guidance to SC colleagues.

Since 2000, IOM has been producing its flagship world migration reports every two years. The World Migration Report 2022, the eleventh in the world migration report series, has been produced to contribute to increased understanding of migration and mobility throughout the world. This new edition presents key data and information on migration as well as thematic chapters on highly topical migration issues, and is structured to focus on two key contributions for readers: Part I: key information on migration and migrants (including migration-related statistics); and Part II: balanced, evidence-based analysis of complex and emerging migration issues. This flagship World Migration Report has been produced in line with IOM’s Environment Policy and is available online only. Printed hard copies have not been made in order to reduce paper, printing and transportation impacts.

As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Europe, the situation for displaced people in the Italian border town of Ventimiglia deteriorated further. Vulnerable individuals and groups would face additional dangers and protection risks in this context, while unaccompanied children continued to be pushed back at alarming rates while being treated as adults, a tactical practice aimed at depriving them of their right to seek asylum in France. This report is based on a combination of desk and field research, and sheds a light on the grave impacts of COVID-19 on an already desperate situation at the French-Italian border. It underlines the acute impact of the pandemic on all aspects of life for people on the move, including access to adequate shelter, medical care, protection, and other rights violations such as racial profiling, pushbacks and detention.

Within the first three months of 2021, an unprecedented 33,000 unaccompanied children arrived at the United States-Mexico border. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) responded by opening new facilities for detained migrant children in converted convention centers, stadiums, and military bases. Ranging from 1000 to 5000 beds, these facilities are not unique to the U.S.: Europe and Australia have adopted similar models of detaining arriving migrants and refugees.1 Responding to these trends, global public health scholars have identified how large post-reception models negatively impact migrants’ mental and physical health and further contribute to increased vulnerability to COVID-19.2 Considerably less attention has been paid to how pandemic-related public health policies have actually fueled the recent demand for mass detention facilities.

More than one year into the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic—with some countries seemingly on their way out of the crisis while others enter new waves—evidence of its impact is growing. COVID-19 is increasing short-term humanitarian needs and negatively affecting longer-term outcomes for marginalized populations and people in vulnerable situations, significantly setting back hard-won development gains, magnifying inequalities, and compounding risks. Among those worst affected are the more than 80 million people worldwide—approximately half of whom are women and girls—who have been forcibly displaced by drivers such as persecution, conflict, generalized violence or human rights violations.

This report investigates the situation facing unaccompanied minors during Covid-19 in Samos. Drawing from desk research, interviews with unaccompanied minors and staff working with them, the report findings underline the further deterioration of an already acute and protracted situation. The children are trapped in dismal reception conditions without appropriate and adequate services. The access to medical care and psychological rehabilitation is grossly insufficient and unaccompanied children face acute safety risks due to being treated as adults, in clear contravention of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In consequence, these conditions and the lack of protection has bred a mental health crisis on the island.

The number of international migrants under 18 is rising, accelerated by complex and fast-evolving economic, demographic, security and environmental drivers. Based on interviews carried out with 1,290 migrant children and young people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, this report helps address the evidence gap on children and young people migrating in the Horn of Africa by providing a better understanding of their protective environments; their access to services and resources; and their perceptions of safety, well-being and trust in authorities and other providers. It concludes by offering policy and programme recommendations to rethink child protection approaches for migrants in the region.

The impacts of COVID-19 in South Asia have heightened and further exposed the vulnerability of migrant workers. These workers and their families are frequently overlooked in the pandemic response – and children are too often ignored in the discourse on migrant workers. Businesses and governments are responsible for protecting all workers from human rights abuses. When this is not done, previous achievements and future development are put in peril.

The United Nations Network on Migration is committed to supporting all partners in pursuit of the implementation of the Global Compact for Migration, recognizing that this cooperative framework provides an invaluable tool for ensuring all in society can contribute to a collective response to COVID-19 and are protected equally against its impact. To that end this briefing is part of a series by the Network looking at different aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how they relate to migrants and their communities. The present document aims to provide practical guidance to States and other stakeholders in preventing and responding to COVID-19 in the context of immigration detention, highlighting instances of promising practices as useful models to draw from.

At a pivotal moment for immigration detention policies and practices, with many States making decisions that will determine whether or not the COVID-19 pandemic is a watershed moment in the use of detention for migration-related reasons, this online workshop brought together government peers from all regions to discuss how to build on the momentum created by the ongoing health crisis to sustain and expand the use of alternatives to immigration detention (ATDs).

The IOM project “Supporting Brighter Futures: Young Women and Girls and Labour Migration in South-East Asia and the Pacific” resulted in a 2019 publication of the same name. Six experts contributed papers exploring issues that ranged from the role of adolescent and young girls as household income providers and the nexus between migration and education, to human trafficking and migrant smuggling. Collectively the papers paint a complex picture, raising challenging policy questions and highlighting gaps that need to be filled by further research. Since Brighter Futures was published, COVID-19 and the measures taken in response to it have shifted the world in ways yet to be fully fathomed. Migration policy and programmatic responses are in rapid flux, and our understanding of the implications is constantly evolving. However, the disproportionate toll on female migrants is already clear, as is their leading role at the frontline of efforts to confront the pandemic. Against this shifting background, this paper offers speculative reflections on some policy implications that these shifts may have on the overarching and interrelated economic, social, cultural and structural findings of the report, and the gender dimensions at play in South-East Asia and the Pacific.

In recent years, global frameworks such as UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, and the Global Compact on Refugees, have helped develop a more supportive legal and policy environment for protecting children on the move. At the same time, evidence on what works and what does not work in protecting children on the move, and why, has not been synthesized across a range of groups (refugees, internally displaced children, migrant children, returnees, children moving with and without families, and in different settings). This report provides an assessment of the reviewed literature and its key findings, and identifies gaps.