A/HRC/15/29
V.
Recent practice, including joint efforts and strategies, to
protect the rights of the child in the context of migration
79.
Governments, international organizations, national human rights institutions, NGOs
and other stakeholders have put in place a variety of initiatives at various levels to protect
the rights of children in the context of migration.68 The following sections provide a brief
and non-exhaustive overview of some recent practice in this regard.69
A.
General
80.
The following are examples of recent practice on general issues related to children in
the context of migration:
(a)
Article 40 of the Ecuador Constitution recognizes the right of all individuals
to migrate, and provides that no person shall be identified nor considered as illegal due to
his or her migration status;
(b)
New legislation passed in New Zealand in 2009 (following a review of the
Immigration Act) defines a child as a person under 18 years of age, in line with the
Convention on the Rights of the Child. The legislation also requires that children be given
the opportunity to express their views and for these to be taken into account in proceedings
affecting them;
(c)
In 2006, Argentina put in place the Patria Grande regularization programme,
which granted either temporary or permanent residence to a total of 776,742 undocumented
migrants from the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) countries;
(d)
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Department of
Economic and Social Affairs and the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation have
created the United Nations Global Migration Database, which includes all publicly
available data on international migrant stocks, separated out by age and sex as well as by
country of birth and citizenship in order to facilitate research and policymaking on issues
related to children in the context of migration.
B.
Economic, social and cultural rights
81.
The following are examples of recent practice on economic, social and cultural
rights:
(a)
Trinidad and Tobago has established universal access to health care for all
migrants in its territory.
68
69
observations, regularly called on States to facilitate family reunification in the best interests of the
child. See, for example, CRC/C/15/Add.248, as well as section VII of general comment No. 6.
Such initiatives are complemented by regional consultative processes (see IOM, “RCPs by Region”
available from http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/policy-research/regional-consultative-processes/rcpsby-region), and the multilateral Global Forum on Migration and Development at the international
level.
Many of the following initiatives are derived from input received for this study from States and other
stakeholders. See http://www2.ohchr.org/english/issues/migration/consultation/index.htm for
reference. See in particular UNICEF, Examples of Good Practice in the Implementation of the
International Framework for the Protection of the Rights of the Child in the Context of Migration,
(draft of 18 May 2010), also available on the migration page of the OHCHR website.
19
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