Peer learning: five years of change

How peer learning can help curb child immigration detention in the Asia Pacific

Peer learning brings people together to solve problems by sharing ideas, experiences, and practical solutions. It helps people learn from each other, making it especially powerful for tackling complex challenges like child immigration detention.

Every year, thousands of children in the Asia Pacific region are held in immigration detention, causing serious harm to their physical and mental wellbeing. Detention is unnecessary and harmful, especially for children, and proven alternatives exist. Community-based alternatives to detention (ATD) allow children and families to live safely in the community while resolving immigration issues, prioritising dignity, wellbeing and human rights.

The Regional Peer Learning Platform on Alternatives to the Detention of Children in the Asia Pacific was set up in 2019 to bring together governments, civil society, academics and international organisations to share knowledge and strategies for implementing these alternatives.

Co-convened by the International Detention Coalition (IDC) and the Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration (ADFM) Secretariat, the Platform provides a space for collaboration and innovation. It supports reform, builds leadership, strengthens partnerships and ensures efforts align with international goals like those in the Global Compact for Migration.

Since its launch, the Platform has brought together 157 people working on this issue from five countries — Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Thailand — to tackle this pressing issue. This summary reflects on five years of progress, challenges and lessons learned to guide future work in ending child immigration detention.

Key outcomes

 

Achieved national reform by uniting government departments, civil society, and other organisations to share ideas, build trust and help participants improve their national systems. For example, Thailand has made significant progress, introducing measures to protect migrant children and ending detention in many cases.

Developed policy champions by supporting mid-level officials and civil society leaders to become champions of reform and use new knowledge and connections in practice. For instance, in Malaysia, a government official used lessons from the Platform to push for a pilot program offering alternatives to detention for children.

Strengthened government-civil society collaboration by equipping governments and civil society to work together more effectively, with civil society now trusted as partners in shaping policies. This approach is designed to enable more inclusive decisions and co-created policies that work in practice.

Enhanced regional cooperation by enabling governments to learn from each other, making it easier to adopt successful practices from neighboring countries and align with broader frameworks like the ASEAN Declaration on the Rights of Children in the Context of Migration.

Key elements for success

 

Expert partnerships with co-organisers International Detention Coalition, which brings deep knowledge of alternatives to detention and expertise in bringing people together for policy discussions, and the Asia Dialogue on Forced Migration, which specialises in regional migration governance and convening high-level policy dialogues.

Choosing the right participants to ensure diverse and constructive perspectives, including mid-level government officials, civil society leaders, academics and international organisations.

Creating space for dialogue, with meetings held under the Chatham House Rule and supported by detailed briefings and live interpretation during sessions to ensure everyone can participate fully.

Incorporating site visits and lived experience, which allows those working on these issues to see how policies affect real people. Participants visit programs where alternatives to detention are already working and hear from people with direct experience of detention and alternatives to detention.

Thoughtful agendas combine presentations, group discussions and informal time to encourage creativity and collaboration. Flexibility ensures they address participants’ priorities and foster problem-solving.

Challenges

 

Balancing different needs of diverse national contexts and varying participant expertise levels remains a challenge.

Maintaining engagement between meetings is made more difficult by limited resources.

Resource constraints pose a risk to the Platform’s sustainability. Convening requires significant funding and organisational capacity.

Meaningful and safe participation of lived experience leaders continues to be an area for growth.


Towards ending immigration detention for refugees in Mexico

Why this is an achievable goal for the incoming government


MEXICO

Mexico is a country that historically has a tradition of asylum. However, in recent years, migration policies have been characterised by a focus on containment rather than humanitarian reception and inclusion.

As a result of excessive militarisation and the focus on detention in immigration review and enforcement, several negative effects have been documented, such as misinformation, delay or lack of access to procedures for the recognition of refugee status and legitimate self-defense, as well as deprivation of liberty of people in vulnerable situations.

At the psychosocial level, people often feel anguish, uncertainty and fear as a result of the lack of information, lack of communication with their families or support networks, as well as the hopelessness caused by confinement, in addition to other effects on their physical health.

The new federal administration, headed by President Claudia Sheinbaum, has an opportunity to build a new migration policy with a rights-based approach that prioritises human security.

“I hadn’t done anything wrong, we were fleeing, but we didn’t do anything wrong, I didn’t deserve to be there in that immigration station, which was worse than a prison. When I got out I even smiled again. Now my husband and I are refugees, we are calmer and we already have jobs.”

“Rebeca”, refugee woman, Mexico 2023.

Improvement opportunities include eliminating immigration detention, prohibiting deprivation of liberty for persons in need of international protection, and creating institutional guidelines for people seeking asylum, children and adolescents in migration, racialised persons, indigenous people, people with disabilities, pregnant women, gender diverse persons, and other populations at greater risk of vulnerability.

Another key opportunity is strengthening institutions that guarantee rights, such as the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR), the National System for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (SIPINNA), the Office of the Attorney General for the Protection of Children and Adolescents, the Ministry of Education, the National System for Comprehensive Family Development (SNDIF), the Ministry of Health, among others.

The new government has an opportunity to take firm steps towards eliminating immigration detention for people seeking asylum. One way forward is to promote the use of alternatives to detention that are respectful of rights, shifting the response to migration flows in favour of humanitarian reception and building welcoming communities, to mention a few possible paths.

IDC has developed a series of recommendations that we will present to the new government. In this way, we aim to promote collaboration towards building a new migration policy, together with other civil society organisations and networks, that puts migrants and refugees at the centre, and allows for the development of policies that prioritise human rights and long-term solutions.


Urgent protections needed to prevent child detention in Europe

IDC calls on states to introduce safeguards in advance of the new EU Migration Pact


A Rohingya child refugee, 2018. (Richard Juilliart/Shutterstock)

EUROPEAN UNION

With preparations underway for the introduction of the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact, IDC condemns the lack of safeguards for human rights in the new legal framework. IDC joins UN experts in calling for states to implement critical protections for migrants and refugees, — and particularly for children — in preparation for the implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum.

The EU’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum is a contentious new policy framework that sets out a plan for how to manage migration in countries across the EU. It is IDC’s view that the Pact undermines the fundamental rights of refugees and migrants.

It introduces expedited border procedures and extensive detention measures, which could lead to inadequate processing of asylum claims and increased risk of human rights abuses, like arbitrary detention and forced returns. And the pact’s focus on externalising border controls through partnerships with non-EU countries also raises concerns about reduced access to asylum and increased incidents of pushbacks, potentially endangering lives and human rights.

Recent IDC research conducted with Linklaters reveals that, despite the pact’s assertion that detention should be a measure of last resort, structural changes such as the ‘fiction of non-entry’ policy could make alternatives to detention (ATD) less viable and increase the likelihood of detention across the European Union.

The ’fiction of non-entry’ allows migrants to be physically present in an EU state while not being legally recognised, significantly restricting their freedom and access to services. This approach can be particularly detrimental as it is likely to increase immigration detention in  the European Union and it will also affect children — mandatory border procedures will also apply to them, potentially leading to widespread detention. This is in direct conflict with international law, which clearly outlines that immigration detention is never in the best interest of the child and that it is a form of violence against children.

IDC is concerned that the Pact implies a serious deterioration in child protection standards and a breach of children’s rights. IDC’s research underscores the profoundly negative effects of detention on children, including severe harm to their mental and emotional health and disruption to their family life and development.

IDC’s Executive Director, Carolina Gottardo, says:

“The new pact is likely to expand immigration detention across European borders and will have devastating consequences on migrants and refugees, particularly on children. The Pact takes us a long way backwards in terms of rights and protection in Europe.

“We must protect the inherent dignity and rights of all children and uphold our international obligations. Member states in Europe need to ensure that they are not detaining children. There is simply no excuse to detain children for immigration-related reasons.”

Based on our analysis, IDC’s position is that the EU Pact may lead to prolonged and extensive use of detention with diminished safeguards, especially for vulnerable groups.

However, IDC emphasises that viable alternatives exist. Since 2017, the European Alternatives to Detention Network has been working with migrants and people seeking asylum to enable them to live freely in the community while their case is processed, rather than in immigration detention.

An evaluation of the pilot programs conducted by the European Alternatives to Detention Network in Bulgaria, Poland and Cyprus in 2020 showed very high rates of engagement, increased case resolution, improved mental health and very low rates of absconding. The programs were also shown to be a fraction of the cost r  of immigration detention. s Independent evaluations of community-based pilots in the UK — led by the Action Foundation (2022) and the King’s Arms Project (2023) — showed similar positive results. The success of these community-based programs shows that there are kinder, safer and more cost-effective alternatives to detention, which benefit host communities, governments and individuals.

IDC calls on EU Member States to reform their policies in line with these findings and to ensure that the rights of children, migrants and refugees are fully protected in their migration procedures. We stand ready to assist in the development and implementation of policies that prioritise human rights and the well-being of all migrants.