New Resources Available - March 2025

Seeking to strengthen the regional system for the protection and promotion of the rights of children and adolescents on the move, the Guide highlights 11 noteworthy experiences that address implementation contexts, challenges, lessons learned, and their potential for replication. With a focus on the best interests of the child and taking into account the diversity of actors involved, which reflects the multicausal nature of the migration phenomenon, the Guide presents good practices that serve as inspiration and provide inputs to turn international and inter-American protection standards for children and adolescents on the move into concrete actions.

The Guide is framed within the efforts of the Working Group for Migrant Children, coordinated by the Inter-American Dialogue since 2022, and within the commitments of the Declaration for the Protection and Integration of Migrant and Refugee Children and Adolescents in the Americas, adopted by the OAS in 2023.

At the time this Guide was drafted, it was estimated that 16.4 million children in Latin America and the Caribbean would need humanitarian support because of internal displacement, migratory flows, violence, and humanitarian demands caused by natural disasters. One in every four people on the move in the region is a child or adolescent, the highest proportion worldwide (25%). Migratory flows are often shaped by factors such as social inequality, precarious educational and labor conditions, violence, extreme weather events, food insecurity, social aspirations, family reunification, among others.

The double vulnerability arising from both age and migration status makes children and adolescents more exposed to specific risks, abuse, and human rights violations that threaten their lives and personal integrity, as in cases of trafficking, labor and sexual exploitation, discriminatory and xenophobic violence, and deprivation of access to basic services such as health, education, and housing, among others. Many children begin the journey in irregular and unsafe conditions, sometimes accompanied by their families, but on other occasions unaccompanied, which creates particular concern in view of their vulnerability and absolute defenselessness.

Responding to the need to guarantee children's rights in mobility contexts, the gap between the norm and the translation of legal texts into meaningful action and public policies that take into account the specific needs and the best interests of children is particularly striking. Thus, the core of the text is a compilation of good practices. The final considerations point to essential factors for progress. These include coordinated and strengthened networking, inclusion of the migrant population in the design and implementation of actions, monitoring and impact evaluation systems that make it possible to adapt and chart new paths in light of new evidence, persuasive and effective communication and awareness campaigns on migration issues, articulation of human talent and local resources, flexibility of bureaucratic and administrative procedures in response to migration realities, among others.

The webinar is available at the following link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSG54BmDHn8