Every child has a story to tell…
There are 82.4 million forcibly displaced people in the world today. That means 1 in every 95 people has been forced to leave their homes because of conflict, natural disasters, climate change and poverty. Worldwide, more than 33 million children had been forcibly displaced by the end of 2020, and while children make up less than one third of the global population, they constitute almost half of the world’s 26.4 million refugees. Today, nearly 1 in 3 children living outside their countries of birth are child refugees.
Globally, barriers to migration and forcible returns are increasing. For example, according to Amnesty International unlawful pushbacks and violence against asylum-seekers and migrants are commonplace at the EU’s external borders. Meanwhile the governments of the USA and Mexico “have deported tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children to their countries of origin, without adequate screenings for potential irreparable harm they could face there. Authorities of both countries have also denied unaccompanied migrant children access to asylum procedures through pushbacks at their respective borders.”
Why are children fleeing their homes and seeking refuge elsewhere? What is it like to be bombed in Syria, threatened with kidnap and murder in El Salvador, or flee forced prostitution in West Africa? How do they manage these journeys? What happens if you are kidnapped in Libya? How do you get in a rubber boat to cross an ocean when you have never seen the sea before? Live in a refugee camp in Northern Greece or a shelter in southern Mexico? How do you smuggle yourself across the Italian Border? How has Covid 19 affected children on the move? What do these children hope for their future?
On this website children from the Middle East, South East Asia, West Africa, East Africa, and Central America tell their stories and give you their own answers, in words and pictures. They are now living or travelling through Greece, France, Italy, the Balkans and the UK, or moving from Central America to Mexico and the United States.
