Detention, even for a short time, has a very toxic effect on children,” states Jeroen Van Hove, coordinator of the International Detention Coalition (IDC’s) campaign to end the immigration detention of children, after introducing research about migrants children who are held in detention in 11 different countries.
The IDC argues that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) states that detention of children should be used "only as a measure of last resort, for the shortest appropriate period of time and taking into account the best interests of the child".
The IDC have estimated that there are tens of thousands of children in detention every day and hundreds of thousands every year.
Research from numerous studies cited in the new report by the IDC has found that immigration detention of children "has profound and far-reaching implications for their development and physical and psychological health".
The longer children are detained, the more likely they are to suffer from mental health problems including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, but evidence shows that even short-term detention has negative impacts on children.
One example of why children are held in detention is that according to officials in America, one of the two countries to not sign onto the CRC along with Somalia, the average length of stay for teenagers fleeing abuse or gang violence in Mexico and Central America has increased in recent years because of the amount of checks required before they can be released to family members, sponsors or foster families.
Therefore, in some cases one of the results of increased child protection is that children may be held in detention longer to ensure their protection.
That is why the focus of the IDC’s campaign also goes beyond encouraging countries to release children from immigration detention to recommending what kind of arrangements children should be released into.
The campaign seeks to draw on best practices from countries such as Belgium and Japan to create a five-step model including assigning guardians to unaccompanied migrant children and placing them in community settings while their immigration status is determined.
Immigration is especially sensitive for unaccompanied minors, children who seek refugee status by themselves. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates 12,800 minors like traveled to industrialized countries in 2003. This number is estimated to be between four and five per cent of all asylum-seekers.
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