United Nations Report: 'Children on the Run' from Violent Homelands UNHCR
go to original March 13, 2014

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) is concerned by increasing numbers of children in the Americas forced from their homes and families, propelled by violence, insecurity, and abuse in their communities and at home.

Download full report (PDF)

In a report released this week, Children on the Run, UNHCR analyzes the humanitarian impact this insecurity has had on children, forcing them across international borders to seek safety on their own. The agency calls on Governments to take action to keep children safe from human rights abuses, violence and crime, and to ensure their access to asylum and other forms of international protection.

“With violence and insecurity permeating the Americas region, we found a strong link between this unabated situation, new displacement patterns and the children’s reasons for leaving their homes and families to flee northward. They escaped armed actors, generalized and targeted violence in their communities and abuse in their homes,” said Shelly Pitterman, UNHCR regional representative in the United States.

The report, based on a 2013 study funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, unveils the humanitarian impact of the situation through UNHCR’s interviews with over 400 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico held in U.S. federal custody.

The report shows that the large majority of these children believed they would remain unsafe in their home countries and as a result, should generally be screened for international protection needs by authorities along the way.

Read the rest at UNHCR

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