Alliance calls on Australian Government to lead the way in protecting displaced children.

 

The IDC is one of a coalition of NGOs calling on the Australian Government to lead the way in protecting child refugees and migrants, as two ground-breaking compacts are discussed at the United Nations General Assembly this week.

 

Australian members of the Initiative for Child Rights in the Global Compacts – including Save the Children, UNICEF Australia, World Vision, International Detention Coalition, the Multicultural Youth Advocacy Network and ISS Australia – today released a policy brief outlining key recommendations.

 

The recommendations are concrete actions based on global commitments made in the UN’s 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, and include a ban on immigration detention of children.

 

The call comes as more than 400,000 people flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh in one of our region’s largest reported population displacements in recent years; and migrants continue to drown in their thousands in the Mediterranean.

 

Among other policy changes, the alliance is calling for the government to:

 

  1. Significantly increase Australia’s annual humanitarian intake to offer protection to more people, including children.
  2. Ban immigration detention of children; ensure families are kept together wherever possible, and migrant children have access to child protection services.
  3. Increase multi-year funding commitments targeted towards quality education for displaced children, including in host communities.