Vulnerability of Child Refugees - A Socio-Legal Critique

Submitted By:- Yashvardhan Gullapalli

 Introduction
“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”
- Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth.
The heart wrenching poem “Home” by Warsan Shire, originally born in Kenya to Somali
parents, currently residing in London. This poem was written after her visit to an abandoned
Somalian Embassy in Rome, which was then occupied by young refugees. She had stated in
her interview that one of them had jumped to his death from the roof the night before she
visited. Since then “Home” has been shared widely on social media and has been the subject
of many public readings including places such as London’s Trafalgar Square. It derives
inspiration from the sombre and miserable atmosphere of the Embassy refugee camp,
bringing out the possibility of a bright future these young people could have had if not for
these miserable circumstances, a possibility no one would even imagine looking at these
refugees and the manner in which they go by their daily lives. It lays bare the situation of
these children and the suffering they go through, for the whole wide world to see.
o Who is a Refugee? And What does it Mean to be One?
The term ‘refugee’, as described by the oxford dictionary means “One who, owing to
religious persecution or political troubles, seeks refuge in a foreign country”, and the term
was first used to describe French Huguenots who migrated to England after the repeal of the
Edict of Nantes in 1685. One crucial condition to classify as a refugee requires that the
person should have fled to a foreign country, a territory governed by a different sovereign
power, if they is displaced within his own country, and hasn’t crossed any international
borders than they shall be called an Internally Displaced Person (IDP)1. It is also a fact that
68% of those displaced across the border come from the Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan,
South Sudan and Myanmar.
The majority of refugees' trips are long and risky, and they have limited access to basic
essentials such as food, water, and shelter. Due to quick and unexpected absences, they
frequently have little, if any, personal possessions. They frequently lack the necessary
paperwork, such as visas, to travel and enter other nations. In order to cross borders, refugees
frequently have little option except to go by land or water, and they must occasionally
commit their lives to smugglers. Today, there are more than 26.4 million refugees (derived
from the actual 82.4 million displaced people) and nearly half of them are children2.

1
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
2
“What Does It Mean to Be a Refugee? - Benedetta Berti and Evelien Borgman.” YouTube, uploaded by TED-
ed, 16 June 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=25bwiSikRsI.
 o Child Refugees

Hundreds of millions of young children are on the move. Conflict, poverty, and climate
change push some people to from their homes; others move in search of a better life. On their
voyages, at their destinations, and upon their return, far too many people face danger,
incarceration, hardship, and prejudice. COVID-19 is a new hazard to children who have been
uprooted. Many of them are especially prone to infectious illnesses like COVID-19 because
of the cramped conditions they live in, and misunderstanding about COVID-19's spread
exacerbates the xenophobia and discrimination they already suffer, aggravating their already
delicate situation in the very country they had sought refuge after being betrayed by their
own. And their exclusion from the country wide vaccination drive further works towards their
ostracization, by spreading the stigma.
There were 33 million children falling under the category of an “international migrant” as of
the year 2020, it can be estimated that one of every eight international migrant is a child. This
number is including the 11.8 million child refugees (10.0 million under the UNHCR mandate
and around 1.8 million Palestinian children under the UNRWA), and 1.3 million asylum
seeking children and a 20.4 million displaced across their respective countries due to violence
and conflict, and not excluding 2.9 million more children displaced internally due to natural
disasters3.

3
United Nations Children's Fund data, Sept 2021
Refugees' age distribution differs significantly from that of foreign migrants, with the refugee
population being significantly younger than the general immigrant population. While adults
make up the vast majority of global migrants, children account for nearly half of all refugees.
The fact that children make up such a big proportion of the refugee population demonstrates
that they continue to face the brunt of decisions and events beyond their control. Between
2005 and 2020, the number of children within the UNHCR's mandate more than quadrupled,
rising from four million to over ten million. The number of these young refugees increased by
116% between 2010 and 2020. In comparison, the overall number of child migrants increased
by just 28% during the same time period.
Children make up a disproportionately large proportion of the world's refugees. In 2020,
children will make up over half of the world's refugees, yet accounting for less than a third of
the worldwide population. Today, approximately one in every three child living outside their
native countries is a refugee; for adults, the figure is lower than 1 in every 20.

 A Legal Purview
The Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, also known as the 1951 Refugee
Convention or the Geneva Convention of July 28 1951, which specifies the exact scope of the
word ‘refugee’ and the rights granted to persons who seek asylum and a set of resposiblities
for the granting nation. It is built upon the Article 14 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of
Human Rights., which sets out to identify the rights of a person seeking asylum from
proscecution in other countries.
The Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, effective from 4th of Oct 1967, with 146
partner countries. This treaty eliminated restrictions of temporal and geographical in nature
which were imposed by the 1951 convention hampering and causing severe inconvinience to
the refugee flow.
Thes two events were truly momentus and played key a role in facilitating refugee movement
right when the world was dealing and recovering from the gruesome aftermatho of the
previous world war. Yet neither of them contained a specific/individual provision clarifying
the standing of children in the whole big picture. As far as these laws were concerned, the
children were essentially indistinguishable from loads of other adult refugees.
o United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is the first human rights
treaty to address a set of specific human rights for children. This critical stage of life has been
identified by the CRC as a time of rapid growth and development as well as high
vulnerability. As a result, it has included measures to encourage such growth (for example,
through the provision of and participation rights such as the right to education and freedom of
speech) as well as to protect children from harm (through protection rights).
The CRC has been ratified by all UN member states except the United States of America,
making it the most ratified human rights pact in history. Countries that ratify the CRC
become States Parties (SPs), with the responsibility to
(a) harmonise their domestic laws and policies with the CRC so that internal systems do not
contradict any provision,
(b) implement all of the CRC's rights for children within their jurisdiction, and
(c) monitor and report on the CRC's implementation to the United Nations Committee on the
Rights of the Child (the Comité).

o Article 22

A child or young person who flees their home country to escape conflict, persecution, or
natural catastrophe has the right to adequate protection and provisions, such as health,
education, and shelter, under Article 22 of the CRC. The CRC's rights apply to all children,
regardless of where they are in the globe; hence, refugee and asylum-seeking children do not
lose any of their rights merely by moving from one nation to another [1]. In actuality, this is
not the case, as many of these children are denied many of their rights depending on where
they migrate throughout the world. Frequently, host States, who have a defined set of
obligations under the CRC, fail to fulfil their commitments for refugee and asylum-seeking
children, putting them at risk of discrimination. Discrimination against children can have a
negative impact on their health and development, as well as breach their human rights under
the CRC.

 Hardships and Struggle in Syria

Salim*, age 2, attempts to remain warm in a refugee camp near the Syrian border during a
brutal winter. Salim will spend the coldest months of the year in a snow-covered tent,
wearing just the cloths on his back to stay warm.
Although the frigid days are long, Salim's nights are always longer. The temperature
decreases as the sun sets, and he can feel the cold air against his cheeks. He shivers to remain
warm, but he has nothing to shelter him from the chilly air rushing through the tent because
he is without a blanket. He is one of many youngsters trying to survive the winter in a refugee
camp, and he is in severe need of warm clothes, blankets, and food when the weather turns
icy.
Syria's youngsters have suffered greatly as a result of the country's more than ten-year
conflict. The world's greatest wave of displacement in modern history has resulted from this
conflict. More than 13 million people have been forced to from their homes, including 6.6
million refugees and more than six million internally displaced persons. Being forced to
escape your home as a youngster is a life-changing experience. It frequently has harmful
consequences that last long after the fight has ended. Syria's youngsters are not the only ones
who want the crisis to end. They aspire to continue their studies or return to school. Despit
this, displaced Syrian children face hard decisions regarding their futures ten years after the
conflict began and one year into the COVID-19 catastrophe4.

 Conclusion
Ours is a world of contrasts. In one corner you have got people livin in multiple storey
mansions, and on the other corner, ten people living in a single room in borderline
harzardious conditions. One one side you have got free and energetic youth activists working
for the welfare of the people with multiple social media handles, and on the other side you
have people who get locked up or worse go ‘missing’ for expressing a slightly disapproving
opinion on a new policy of the government. In the same way we have got children going to
schools, learning new things everyday, evolving, and planning for the future, while in the
same world we have children fighting for survival, being drafted into the army, being
brainwashed, being seperated from their parents.
In this modern era of ours, there exists a child refugee crisis much worse than that during the
Second World War. Considering the fact that it was the most devestating war in the entire
history of humanity, both in an economical and death toll spectrum. That is saying
something. The whole world need to develope a more accomodating approach with respect to
and not limited to child refugees. The recent viral video from afghanistan of a couple handing
over their little baby to a U.S soldier over an barricade (although it is said that they
themselves crossed it later on), perfectly depicts the feeling of a parent with respect to their
child in an environment of extream danger and violence, the desire to secure their future with
any means possible.
It is the pain that binds us together just like our greatest fears. The lone fact that our current
world forces a fellow human to part with his progeny, in in itself a huge faliure. Mere
activism and campaining will not eleminate this stain from the pages of our history. A much
stricter and inclusive solution is a necessity. With our vast and inctricate network of social
media is a possible path towards ensuring a brighter and wholesome future for the young.

4
Syrian Refugee Children Stories : Life as a refugee. Save the Children. (n.d.). Retrieved December 13, 2021,
from https://www.savethechildren.org/us/what-we-do/emergency-response/refugee-children-crisis/refugee-
stories.