Opening remarks: Annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child. The rights of the child and family reunification

Mr President,
Distinguished panellists,

Today’s debate is an urgent one.

When a child is separated from their parents or caregivers, they can suffer severe harm, emotional pain and potential lifelong damage to their mental or physical health.

Yet each year, alarming numbers of children are torn apart from their families. Many are displaced or are compelled to move within their own countries or across borders. They may have been separated due to climate change, or other factors driving migration. They may have lived through armed conflict or humanitarian crisis.

Whatever the circumstances, under international law, all children should enjoy the right to family life. Children have the right to grow up in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding, where they are nurtured, and protected.

A child who is separated from her or his family is at greater risk of suffering violence, abuse and neglect. They may be forced to live alone, or to be cared for by people who do not have their best interests at heart.

They are more susceptible to trafficking or exploitation. They may lose their legal identity, or be forced into child labour. Factors such as their age, religion, migration status, sexual orientation or gender identity, and disability may increase their vulnerability.

And the longer children are separated from their family, the more vulnerable they become.

Children who migrate are at higher risk of separation from their families. Some will start their journeys unaccompanied, while others may be separated while on the move. Without adequate support, children may be forced to take perilous routes or use dangerous means of travel to be with their families again.

It is shocking that each year, more than 300,000 children are detained during the migration process. Some 77 countries are known to detain children for migration-related reasons, a wholly unacceptable figure.

We know that detaining children is never in their best interest, as it has a detrimental and long-lasting effect on their development and their physical and mental well-being. It takes them away from their families. It violates their rights to healthcare and education and can aggravate previous trauma.

Excellencies,

Current approaches to family reunification are failing our children. National laws and policies rarely take children’s needs into account, and prolonged or overly complex procedures only serve to worsen their situation. Children who have found themselves alone often do not have the appropriate support or a clear pathway to be able to reunite with their family.

Separation of children from their families is a global crisis.

As members of the Human Rights Council – and simply as human beings - it is our obligation to play an immediate and active role in preventing an even further explosion of this crisis. And we need to find urgent solutions for the many children around the world today who find themselves without parents or caregivers.

In the approaches and solutions that we propose, the rights of the child must come first.

Regarding migrant children, we need to ensure families migrate together, and stay together. This requires more accessible and regular paths that take into account the enduring emotional, personal, economic and social ties that children and their families may have developed in their destination country.

We also need to ensure child-sensitive family reunification procedures that respond to the specific needs of migrants.

Keeping migrant families together must be a priority. Returning children or their families to their country of origin may violate the right to family and private life.

I also call on States to prohibit child and family immigration detention by law, and to abolish it in policy and practice.

All children everywhere are equal in dignity and rights. Whether they live in safety, whether they have been affected by war, or whether they are migrants, they have exactly the same rights to family, protection and security.

We need to strengthen family reunification procedures, underpinned by a decisive global strategy. States must come together to develop and implement global, gender-responsive guiding principles on reunification based on the rights of the child.

The voices of children must not only be heard, but listened to. When developing these guidelines, children’s own experience and opinions must be decisive in all procedures that affect them, and which may alter the course of their lives.

In my report (A/HRC/49/31) on the matter, I have outlined the child rights principles which can help safeguard such policy and practice.

The international community of States cannot continue failing children. For each and every child, the right to grow up in a family environment must be respected, protected and fulfilled.

I thank you for your attention.