Children on the move

• ENOC Statement on Children on the move, available in English, Greek, Serbian Cyrillic, Serbian Latin and French.

• ENOC Statement on urgent help required for Syrian children in refugee camps, available in  English and French.

"Children on the move" covers all children who migrate from their country of origin to and within the territory of a European country in search of survival, security, improved standards of living, education, economic opportunities, protection from exploitation and abuse, family reunification, or a combination of these factors. They may travel with their family, or independently, or with non-family members. They may be seeking asylum, victims of trafficking, or undocumented migrants. The status of children on the move may differ at various stages on their journey and they may encounter many differing situations of vulnerability.

Despite the increasing efforts of national, European and international authorities to address adequately the situation of 'children on the move' (unaccompanied/separated asylum seeking, refugee, migrant, trafficked, Roma children etc), the ground reality shows the opposite: their basic needs are very often not met and their rights, as children first, hardly ever respected.

The position statement is based on the collective work, ground evidences and experiences of ENOC members and has been unanimously adopted at the ENOC 17th Annual General Assembly in September 2013 in Brussels.

On the occasion of the 17th ENOC Annual Conference held in Brussels in late September 2013, ENOC members also adopted a joint statement on an urgent help required for Syrian children in refugee camps to avoid humanitarian catastrophe.

To learn about other and more recent activities conducted by ENOC on the issue of Children on the Move, click here.