End Immigration Detention of Children: Advocacy Brief
By United Nations Task Force on Children Deprived of Liberty
IMMIGRATION DETENTION, IS NEVER IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD AND CONSTITUTES A CHILD RIGHTS VIOLATION.
It is a form of violence that impacts a country’s capacity to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, especially targets 10.7 and 16.2.4,5 All children, regardless of their legal or migratory status or that of their families, have the right to be cared for and protected from violence, abuse and exploitation. At least 77 countries have laws and policies that allow children to be detained based on their legal or migratory status, and at least 330,000 children globally per year are deprived of their liberty based on their (or their parents’) legal or migratory status.6 Lack of accurate data means this is likely to be a significant under-estimate. While many countries have committed to end child immigration detention, the reality is that even in some countries where legislation does not support immigration detention, it continues to remain in use.7 In 2022, the United Nations Task Force on Children Deprived of Liberty8,9 under the leadership of the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children, made a joint pledge10 at the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF):
To conduct evidence-based advocacy and to mobilize all key stakeholders at all levels to scale up child rights-based protective solutions to end the detention of children in the context of migration.
To support Member States to harmonize their national legal frameworks with international human rights standards to explicitly prohibit detention of children based on their migration status or that of their families.
To involve and amplify the voices of migrant children in determining their best interests in all issues concerning children in legislation, policies, practices, including those related to integration, return and family reunification; as well as access to services, to justice and to remedies for violations of their rights.
To support data collection and the dissemination of promising practices on child rights-based protective solutions as alternative measures to end the detention of children in the context of migration.
This advocacy brief provides an overview of promising practices and lessons learned to end child immigration detention and sets out a range of policy actions needed to scale up efforts to end this form of violence
New York: UNICEF, 2024. 15p.