Rights of Child Asylum Seekers and Refugee Children

and collaborate with us to ensure that the rights of these vulnerable children are protected and respected as mandated by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in Canada. We invite everyone to be active participants and advocates for these vulnerable children. Take part in discussions, leave comments, share it with your friends, spread the word! According to the UN’s 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, a REFUGEE is a person who has left his or her country and cannot return because of a well- founded fear of being persecuted due to race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group (United nations association in Canada, 2010). War and persecution force people to flee their homes in many parts of the world. Refugees leave their countries because their basic human rights have been violated or are in jeopardy. Persecution may be for a variety of reasons, such as political opinion, ethnicity or religious belief. Refugees cannot count on protection from their own government, including the police and the courts. Their only option is to seek safety in another country (United nations association in Canada, 2010). ASYLUM is the protection offered to someone fleeing persecution in another country. An ASYLUM-SEEKER is a person who has crossed an international border and applies for protection as a refugee in another country. Many countries, like Canada, have special procedures to decide whether an asylum-seeker is a refugee to whom protection should be granted. In Canada, asylum seekers are known as refugee claimants (United nations association in Canada, 2010). Canada, together with the United States, is home to the largest number of refugees in the world. As of January 2011, there are 165,549 refugees and 51,025 asylum-seekers residing in Canada. UNHCR's strategy for North America and the Caribbean will include efforts to:
* Enhance political and financial support for its global programmes to maximize
access to solutions for people of concern.
* Raise public awareness of refugee priorities and gradually increase private
support for all UNHCR programmes.
* Promote favourable protection environments for all populations of concern
and increase resettlement programmes.
* Promote and implement updated contingency plans and ensure preparedness
for mass displacement scenarios (The UN refugee agency, 2012). Canada has been examined twice by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on its compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Canada is currently due for its third examination. In its previous reports, the Committee on the Rights of the Child highlighted a number of areas in which Canada falls short with respect to refugee and immigrant children. Despite the UN recommendations, many of the problems noted persist today (Canadian Council for refugees, 2009)

KEY CONTINUING CONCERNS in Canada

1. Best interests of the child
Many immigration decisions affecting children continue to be made without appropriate (or in some cases any) consideration of the bests interests of the child. One of the results is that children are separated from their parents or denied family reunification. For more information, see the report: The understanding and application of “Best Interests of the Child”in H & C decision-making by Citizenship and Immigration Canada, September 2008.

2. Family reunification
Many refugees families are force to wait years for family reunification, at enormous cost to the children and in violation of Canada’s obligations to deal with family reunification in a “positive, humane and expeditious manner”. Children in Africa and parts of Asia face particularly long waits. In 2008, half of the refugee family reunification cases processed at the Nairobi visa office took more than 22 months. In Colombo, half took more than 30 months. DNA tests are frequently demanded and are expensive and time-consuming. Some refugees face specific barriers, such as families affected by the “excluded family member” rule (Regulation 117(9)(d)). Separated children recognized as refugees have no right under the law to reunification with their parents and siblings.

3. Children in detention
Even though the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act provides that children should only be detained “as a measure of last resort”, significant numbers of children spend time in immigration detention in Canada, some with a parent and some unaccompanied. In December 2008, 61 children were detained, 10 of them unaccompanied children. In the summer of 2008 an 11-year-old girl spent a month in immigration detention in Montreal after having been identified as a possible victim of trafficking. She spent part of that time in isolation.

4. Lack of national policy for separated children claiming refugee status
Despite the clear recommendation from the UN Committee, Canada has still not developed a national policy for separated children claimants, leading to some of these extremely vulnerable children falling between the cracks. The government does not even keep reliable statistics on how many separated children are making refugee claims.

5. Children in poverty
Refugee and immigrant children experience high rates of poverty in Canada. Many are from racialized families that are over-represented among the poor. A January 2007 Statistics Canada study found a high proportion of recent immigrants faced chronic low income, even though more immigrants are arriving in Canada with high professional skill levels. For example, the Canadian government expects resettled refugee families to pay for their transportation to Canada, with the result that these families spend their first years in Canada trying to pay off of debt of up to $10,000. Children in these families are often under pressure to work to contribute to repaying the loan. Other families, such as those from moratorium countries who remain for years without permanent residence, are denied the Canada Child Tax Benefit.

6. Lack of protection for trafficked children
Canada lacks effective policies and programs to protected trafficked persons, including trafficked children. The only place in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act where trafficked persons are mentioned is in the regulation which includes having been trafficked as a factor in favour of detention, including for children. There is nothing in the law to protect the rights of trafficked persons specifically. As a result, an 11-year-old girl spent a month alone in detention in 2008

7. Stateless children
Canada has still not ratified the Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons of 1954. Worse, changes to the Citizenship Act approved in 2008 increase the risk that children of Canadian citizens will be born stateless (Canadian Council for refugees, 2009). References

Canadian Council for refugees. (2010). Refugees and immigrants. Retrieved January 10, 2012, from http://ccrweb.ca/en/glossary

Grover, S. (2007). On the rights of refugee children and child asylum seekers. In R.B. Howe & K. Covell (Eds.), A Question of Commitment: Children’s Rights in Canada (pp.343-372). Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. United Nations Association in Canada, (2010). Refugees: A Canadian perspective. Retrieved January 10, 2012, fromhttp://www.unhcr.ca/documents/teachersguide-e.pdf