Children and Migration

Millions of children around the world are affected by migration. This includes girls and boys who migrate within and between countries (usually with their families but sometimes on their own), as well as children ‘left behind’ when their parents or caregivers migrate in search of economic opportunities. Be it forced or voluntary, by adults or children, migration affects children’s care situations and can entail risks to their protection.

Children on the move: Like adults, children often migrate in an attempt to build a better life – to escape poverty, discrimination or conflict, and to find education, employment and other opportunities. Others relocate due to an unstable or difficult family environment, such as the loss of a parent, or neglect or abuse from a caregiver. Children may migrate with or without their families, and their movements may be temporary, seasonal or permanent.

While migration can open up new opportunities for children, it can also expose them to harmful care situations, chronic poverty, violence and exploitation. During transit and at their destination, migrant children may end up in unsafe institutions, detention centres, on the streets or in overcrowded, poor-quality accommodation. Others who migrate to join households (e.g. for fostering, education, domestic work or apprenticeships) may be subjected to exploitation. Many migrant children, particularly those without documentation, end up without access to education, protection or basic services, while discrimination and language barriers make it difficult for them to reintegrate into new communities.

Children left behind. An increasing number of children around the world are also adversely affected when migrating parents leave home to seek out employment or economic opportunities (often in urban centres). While children may gain materially from remittances sent home, the absence of a parent may be detrimental to their social and psychological development. In particular, the nature and quality of children’s care relationships may suffer as they adjust to life without a loved caregiver and try to replace a physically and emotionally nurturing relationship with someone new.

Studies from around the world indicate that children left behind by migrating caretakers face education, health and psychosocial problems, including deteriorating academic performance and lower school attendance, greater risk of drug abuse, early pregnancy, involvement in criminal activities and social dysfunction. Left behind children may suffer from low self-esteem and feelings of abandonment, and in the worst cases may be vulnerable to violence, abuse and trafficking. While new or remaining caretakers can offer children a protective and caring environment they may also struggle to care for them without support, and breakdown of these relationships can sometimes result in children’s placement in harmful institutional care.

The documents in this section focus on the impact of migration on children’s care situations, and outline policy, advocacy and programmatic measures to enhance child migrants’ protection.

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Concept mapping the needs of Flemish nonkinship foster parents who care for unaccompanied refugee minors

Frank Van Holen, Lenny Trogh, Delphine West, Nina Meys, Johan Vanderfaeillie - Children and Youth Services Review, 22 Nov 2018

In this study, concept mapping was used to identify the needs of nonkinship foster parents from Caucasian ethnicity who care for unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) in Flanders (Dutch speaking part of Belgium).

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Migration, Displacement and Education: Building Bridges, Not Walls

UNESCO, 20 Nov 2018

This 2019 Global Education Monitoring Report continues its assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. Its main focus is on the theme of migration and displacement.

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The Psychological Capital of Left-Behind University Students: A Description and Intervention Study from China

Liang Li, Yang Y. Sheng, and Xiao Q. Guo - Frontiers in Psychology, 19 Nov 2018

The authors of this study decided to perform two investigations to determine if university students with left-behind experience (USWL) might possess unique positive psychological capital factors.

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Does parental migration have any impact on nutritional disorders among left-behind children in Bangladesh?

M Mofizul Islam, Md Nuruzzaman Khan and Md Nazrul Islam Mondal - Public Health Nutrition, 15 Nov 2018

This study investigated the impact of parental migration on nutritional disorders of left-behind children (LBC) in Bangladesh.

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Subjective well‐being among left‐behind children in rural China: The role of ecological assets and individual strength

Xiaoyun Chai, Xiaoyan Li, Zhi Ye, Yuxuan Li, Danhua Lin - Child: Care, Health and Development, 15 Nov 2018

Grounded in the framework of positive youth development (PYD), this study was designed to examine how ecological assets (i.e., neighborhood social cohesion and trusting relationships with caregivers) and individual strength (i.e., resilience) predict subjective well‐being among left‐behind children.

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Gifts, trips and Facebook families: children and the semiotics of kinship in transnational Senegal

Chelsie Yount-André - International African Institute, 07 Nov 2018

Scholarship on transnational families has regularly examined remittances that adults abroad send to children in their country of origin. This article illuminates another permutation of these processes: family members in Senegal who establish relations with and through children in France through gifts and money.

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Depression among Chinese LBC: Understanding Depression in context of a family-oriented culture

Lanyan Ding - The Graduate College at the University of Nebraska, 01 Nov 2018

This research examined the relationships among family structure (leftbehind status), caregiving, and child depression using archival data from the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) in both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses.

Children Come First, Intervento in Frontiera: Dossier VII

Alessio Fasulo - Save the Children Italy, 01 Nov 2018

As part of the "Children Come First: Intervention at the border" project, Save the Children Italy elaborates and disseminates, on a quarterly basis, a dossier containing quantitative and qualitative information (profiles) relating to migrant minors entering Italy. This dossier contains information relating to the period July-October 2018.

Reception of Children on the Move in South Africa

Anisa Mahmoudi & Tshegofatso Tracy Mothapo - Kids Empowerment , 01 Nov 2018

This report from Kids Empowerment reviews the reception of children on the move in South Africa.

Mapping Children on the Move Within Africa

African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child , 01 Nov 2018

This study provides an overview of the situation of children on the move within Africa and assessed the extent to which Member States of the African Union have established normative and institutional structures to address the needs of children on the move in their territories. It presents an informed overview of the routes that children move along in within the continent, the reasons why they move and where these children move to as well as the risks that they are exposed to whilst on the move. The study also scrutinises the legal frameworks affecting child mobility in the continent.