Call for ‘new deal’ for child refugees

Migrant child covered in blanket stands in rain at Greek border camp near Idomeni, 10 March 2016

Many child migrants like this boy in northern Greece have made the perilous journey to Europe

Save the Children is calling for greater international commitment to ensure child refugees remain in school.

The charity’s new report, A New Deal for Refugees, says no child should be out of school for more than a month.

It comes as countries struggle to respond to a huge displacement of people fleeing conflict and hardship.

Another call for a greater response to the crisis will be made on Monday by the Special Envoy for the UN Refugee Agency, Angelina Jolie-Pitt.

Mrs Jolie-Pitt, as well as a former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, will be speaking at the BBC during a day of special live coverage examining how an age of unprecedented mobility is shaping our world.

World on the Move graphic

BBC News World On The Move is a day of coverage dedicated to migration, and the changing effect it is having on our world.

A range of speakers, including the UNHCR’s special envoy Angelina Jolie-Pitt, and former British secret intelligence chief Sir Richard Dearlove, will set out the most important new ideas shaping our thinking on economic development, security and humanitarian assistance.

You can follow the discussion and reaction to it, with live online coverage on the BBC News website.

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More people are now fleeing conflict and hardship than at any other time in recorded history.

Many are children, and most of them are losing out on their education.

Save the Children says only one in four refugee children is now enrolled in secondary school. The charity is calling on governments and aid agencies to adopt a new policy framework that will ensure no refugee child remains out of school for more than a month.

It is an ambitious target but there is growing concern that this migration crisis is producing a lost generation of children which means conditions for even greater insecurity and poverty.

Mrs Jolie Pitt will call for stronger multilateral action to respond to this migration, which she describes as the challenge of our century.

She will say there is now a “risk of a race to the bottom, with countries competing to be the toughest… despite their international responsibilities”.

BBC

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