Forced to flee their homes, often travelling great distances to escape enemy fire, these children are the most frequent victims of violence, disease, malnutrition and death. In the chaos of flight, these boys and girls may become separated from their…
The Convention on the Rights of the Child notes that there should be due regard to the desirability of continuity in a child's upbringing and to the child's ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic background. Article 8 focuses on the legal…
What is your role at CIDA? I have been invited by the Minister for International Cooperation to be Special Advisor on War-affected Children to the Canadian International Development Agency. My role is to provide insight to CIDA on specific areas…
My name is Wilmot, from Liberia. I am 16 years old. At age five, I fled from Liberia with my mother to Sierra Leone. I was too young at the time to really understand what was happening. I heard the…
In addressing forced displacement in Colombia, for example, UNICEF has implemented a number of creative initiatives, with a rights perspective, that are being replicated in other parts of the world. Breaking the cycle of violence For more than 40 years…
Throughout the 1990s, national and international humanitarian agencies faced a number of challenges in developing their response to the needs of countries and communities affected by armed conflict, massive displacement and the deliberate violations of human rights. Developing adequate human…
Sharply turning the tables on the carers and protectors, it asked whether they had done enough to prevent abuses from within their own ranks. Numerous scandals in recent years have implicated other respected institutions of society - including church hierarchies,…
Sexual abuse and exploitation, in humanitarian crises or elsewhere, reflect a variety of failures or omissions attributable to a range of responsible actors and institutions. They represent a failure to uphold basic rights to protection. In institutional terms, sexual exploitation…
Education should be a key part of programming and planning for displacement. Every effort should be made to immediately establish or restore educational programmes. In the first weeks of an emergency, education may be simply organised 'play', giving children a…
In many crisis situations children have no access at all to organised learning experiences. In others, when schooling is in already in place, there are questions as to whether learning is relevant or comprehensive. In either case, there are decisions…