A Call to Action: Protecting children on the move starts with better data

Millions of children have migrated across borders or been forcibly displaced and reliable, timely and accessible data and evidence are essential for understanding how migration and forcible displacement affect children and their families – and for putting in place policies and programs to meet their needs. However, we do not know enough about children on the move: their age and sex; where they come from, where they are going, whether they move with their families or alone, how they fare along the way, what their vulnerabilities are. In many cases data are not regularly collected, and quality is often poor. This joint A call to action – Protecting children on the move starts with better data by UNICEF, UNHCR, IOM, Eurostat and OECD urges Member States to prioritize actions to address these evidence gaps, and include child-specific considerations in the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and the Global Compact on Refugees.

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5 Action points for better data on children

• Disaggregate data by age and sex
• Cover key issues relating to children affected by migration and displacement
• Make better use of existing data, and share
• Coordinate data efforts within countries and across borders
• Make special efforts to collect and analyze data on children

For an overview of the key facts and figures relating to children on the move, see the UNICEF Data Brief here.