Children, Adolescents and Migration: Filling the Evidence Gap
The absence of information on basic migration trends and its impacts on children and adolescents severely hampers one of UNICEF's main concerns-to ensure children's, adolescents' and women's rights in receiving societies regardless of citizenship and migratory status-and also constrains the endeavours of policymakers at national and regional levels to design and implement evidence-based policies in order to maximize the positive effects of migration and to minimize its negative effects on migrant families and migrant communities of origin and destination.
To fill this void, UNICEF has partnered with the Population Division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN/DESA) to develop estimates of the global stock of international migrant children and adolescents. These estimates will allow policy makers to understand the patterns of child and adolescent migration across the world and to support partners in developing countries and developed countries to formulate coherent policies to ensure the rights of migrant children and adolescents in accordance with the 1990 Convention of the Rights of the Child and other relevant international instruments.