UNICEF Calls for Action to Protect Migrant Children

UNITED NATIONS – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) called today for concrete action to ensure the safety of migrant children after hundreds were killed in 2016 on the Mediterranean Sea route.

In a report released today, the agency proposed to protect minors traveling alone, to stop the detention of migrant children, to keep families together and to do everything possible so that children still have access to education and health.

Governments and the European Union should support this action plan, the Fund said.

The report shows that women and minors who leave their countries routinely suffer from sexual violence, exploitation, abuse and detention along the Central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa, particularly Libya, to Italy.

â’???”A Deadly Journey for Children: The Central Mediterranean Migrant Route’, is the latest UNICEF report on the subject.

According to the document, 75 percent of minors interviewed by the UN said that at some point along the way they suffered violence, abuse, and aggression by adults, while almost half of the women and girls were sexually abused.

In 2016, around 4,600 people died in an attempt to cross the Mediterranean from Libya, 700 of them were children.

We need to protect children from predators and ensure safe routes for migrants, the report stated.