Equal rights for young refugees and asylum seekers

The Home Office has said that it will look again at its reservation on article 22 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Article 22 says that governments must give protection and help to children who are refugees, or trying to be accepted as refugees, in line with all the rights in the Convention. A reservation is when a government does not agree to follow one particular section of an international treaty that it has signed up to.

The Children’s Commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, hopes that the review will end up with the reservation to article 22 being removed, so that ‘this group is no longer excluded from the care, consideration and protection to which all children and young people are entitled’.

The Chief Executive of the Refugee Council agrees. She said: ‘Children who are the subject of immigration control are often among the most vulnerable, some here without their parents or anyone to look after them. The reservation is unnecessary and sends out the wrong message’.

CRAE is pleased that the Government is looking at this issue, and hopes that young refugees and asylum seekers will soon be given the same rights as all other children in England.

Check out the whole article in Community Care magazine

Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2008 in