Growing plight of child refugees

As the international community continues to watch in utter horror and consternation, there seem to be no let up in the growing number of child refugees across the world. Incidentally, the majority of these children have been rendered homeless or orphaned as result of wars, famines and other natural disasters.
Only last August, the image of a five-year-old boy, Omran Daqneesh, from Aleppo, Syria who sat shell shocked in an ambulance with blood-spattered clothes shocked the world.  However, behind that vacuous stare was the face of a child in trauma. Omran was just one of the growing number of children caught up in a relentless civil war between the Syrian government and rebels which has been going on for five years.
Just a year ago, another picture of a small child, Alan Kurdi dismayed public opinion around the world. The picture of Alan’s small body, face down on the Turkish beach, drowned when the boat on which he and his family were trying to reach Europe capsized, personalised the great human tragedy of Syria and efforts by children to escape.
Both Alan and Omran represent the face of a vicious reality that is presently enveloping the world. From Afghanistan to Syria, from Iraq to Yemen and from Pakistan to Nigeria, the increasing number children being displaced and forced to become refugees is giving room for concern.  A UNICEF report, “Uprooted: The Growing Crisis for Refugee and Migrant Children”, noted that 50 per cent of the 50 million children who have migrated or been forcibly displaced across borders were victims of violence. Moreover, the report revealed that one in three children who live outside their country of birth is a refugee.
A UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), report said that in the decade ending 2015, the number of child refugees has almost doubled. Last year, Syria and Afghanistan alone accounted for nearly half the world’s child refugees, highlighting the brutal impact of the war on a segment of society that had little to do with the conflict directly.
In Nigeria, the continuing Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast has been responsible for the ruthless displacement of thousands of children whose future remains grim. Against this backdrop, the dramatic rise in school enrolment under a global universal primary education drive, or the halving of infant mortality rates under the Millennium Development Goals, seem like postcards from another universe.
It is a fact that these children are not only desperately vulnerable they need protection by their host communities and governments. This call has become very urgent; especially against the discovery by ‘Save the Children Fund’ that many of the minors it helped in Italy had contracted sexually transmitted diseases. Moreover, of the 26,000 who arrived in Europe last year, have been trafficked into the sex industry or some form of domestic slavery.
Incidentally, coping with the child refugee crisis requires a global response. That is why we are calling on the international community to find ways of  putting a  stop to this mind boggling and shameful episode of child refugees. Never has mankind since the end of World War 11 seen such massive and mindless displacement of children who are forced to escape violence from their homelands.