UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : UNOG Bi-weekly Press Briefing - Gender and Migration Report UNICEF 27 August 2021

Gender plays a pivotal role in the decision to leave home and continues to shape a child’s experiences and vulnerabilities throughout their journey, a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has revealed. More girls and boys than ever are on the move, with 35.5 million children living outside their country of birth in 2020 and an additional 23.3 million girls and boys internally displaced. Released on Friday, the UNICEF report Uncertain Pathways found that over the course of the year, there were almost 15 million new displacements or 41,000 new displacements each day, and that boys outnumber girls.

“This means today close to 60 million girls and boys have migrated across borders or been forcibly displaced within their own countries. Almost 10 million more compared to 2015 when UNICEF published the report ‘Children Uprooted’ said Verena Knaus, Global Lead for Migration and Displacement UNICEF, who was speaking at the launch of the report in Geneva. Ms Knaus stated that while there is much policy debate over labels such as whether a child is a migrant or a refugee, “we know surprisingly little about how migration and flight is experienced differently by gender”. “Gender skews certain migration routes and experiences,” Ms Knaus said. In 2020, “nine in ten unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Europe were boys. More than half of these boys came from Afghanistan, Morocco and Syria. She added that Afghanistan is number 1 on the list of Top 10 countries of origin with the largest number of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in Europe. Whilst we know that many more Afghan boys have migrated across borders than girls, she highlighted the gender imbalance: “Where are the Afghan girls? Where and how can Afghan girls seek international protection, today and in the future?”

The report also describes how migration decision making is gendered, Ms Knaus said girls and boys may be motivated to move for different reasons; “boys are often expected to assume the role of bread winner, while girls may migrate as a strategy to delay early marriage or conflict-related sexual violence”. Migration-specific risks are also gendered with girls outnumbering boys by four to three as victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation, while boys are often trafficked for forced labour. The report highlights how existing gender gaps in education are further exacerbated in humanitarian settings, with displaced girls more likely to be out of school than boys. “In camp settings, girls are 2.5 times more likely to be out of school than boys,” said Ms Knaus. The report calls for governments to address the “blind spots” through greater coordination and investment in gender-specific data, disaggregation and standardization to ensure the response really reaches those it needs to reach. It urges a move away from one-size-fits-all approaches and to prioritise interventions that are tailored to the gender-specific risks, needs and drivers of children on the move. The response must not just be “gender-responsive but “gender transformative” to address the deeply ingrained inequalities between girls and boys when it comes to access to international protection and the opportunities that migration offers, she said.

UNOG News Briefing - Gender and Migration Report UNICEF 27AUG2021

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