THE RIGHTS ОF REFUGEES СHILDREN IN URBAN CENTER

ABSTRACT

Globally each year, millions of individuals and families flee their native countries to find safety in other nation states as refugees. Resettlement in another country provides a durable solution for refugees unable to voluntarily return home or remain in their country of refuge (United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Development Program 2015). Millions of children continue to arrive at contemporary state borders seeking entry and protection. Many are turned away, and many others are treated as invisible or with suspicion as false or overwhelming petitioners. For the sake of these children and for the good of all humanity, there is a pressing need to reposition refugee children in international and national discourse on protection and rights. This research generally seeks what are the rights of refugee children in their countries of asylum? The general objective of this study is to investigate the right of refugee children in their countries of asylum and in this case, Douala-Cameroon. The explanatory and content research design with a qualitative approached will be employ to analyze the collected data. The source of data will include both primary and secondary data. Data collection will be done through observations, case studies and interviews through semi structured questionnaire. Primary data will be gotten through means such as observations, case studies and interviews with the parents of refugee children, refugees and asylum seekers in Douala. Secondary data on the other hand will be gotten through articles and journals of both the government, local and international non-governmental organizations such as Plan International and Association Refugees sans Frontiers. This research is about manipulation by policy creators, administrators, and social workers of the social system in Cameroon who is in charge to guarantee the welfare of children notably refugee children and Africa as a whole.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Each year, millions of individuals and families flee their native countries to find safety in other nation states as refugees. They escape because their governments will not or cannot protect them against human rights abuses. These refugees have a legitimate fear of being persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group. The United Nations Refugee Convention signed in 1951 defines a refugee as a person who, because of fear and persecution, leaves their country of nationality and is unable or unwilling to access for himself the protection of that country (United Nations 2016). Resettlement in another country provides a durable solution for refugees unable to voluntarily return home or remain in their country of refuge (United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Development Program 2015, p.46). Consequently, their children are forced to leave their schools and move into an entirely new society. This automatically makes them vulnerable and subject to various untoward conditions and treatments. Refugee children are in an even more precarious situation. They face the vulnerability of being a refugee and that of being a child. They are denied certain fundamental rights of life, including education, which give them the opportunity to rise above the crisis in which they have found themselves and be useful to themselves and to their community. Presently, the refugee crisis is at an all-time high since World War II. Due to civil war, violence, persecution, environmental disasters, poverty, and food scarcity, the number of refugees worldwide has increased exponentially. Each day, 42,500 people leave their homes to seek protection from conflict and persecution. They settle either within their countries’ borders or in other nations (United Nations2016). Approximately half of all refugees are children under the age of 18 (Save the Children2016; United Nations 2016) and all have the right to quality education.

For many refugee children, this new identity in a new culture is often associated with past traumas. In addition to the traumatic transition in a new environment, many refugee children have to cope with trauma from past experiences and the impact of displacement. They have experienced traumas such as disruption of their daily lives, the loss of their home countries, separation from their families, and food scarcity. Many  have witnessed violence and death. The very nature of being a refugee implies having one’s life—including one’s cultural environment—upended. It implies a transitory lifestyle in which there exists a great deal of uncertainty (Lerner2012). The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the first human rights treaty that has considered a series of unique human rights specifically for children. The CRC has recognized this important phase of life as being a period of accelerated growth and development as well as a time of great vulnerability. Therefore, it has made provisions to promote such development (through, for example, provision and participation rights, such as the right to education and freedom of expression) and to prevent harms to which children may be vulnerable (through protection rights). The CRC is the most highly ratified human rights treaty in history, with ratification from all member States of the United Nations (UN), except the United States of America (United States) . Through ratification, countries become States Parties (SPs) to the CRC and have the obligation to (a) harmonize their domestic laws and policies with the CRC so that internal systems do not contradict any provision, (b) implement all rights articulated under the CRC for children within their jurisdiction, and (c) monitor and report the process of implementation of the CRC to a Geneva-based committee known as the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (the Committee hereafter)

In 2019, the global community celebrated the 30th anniversary of the CRC. Three decades have passed since its adoption by the General Assembly in 1989, and yet, the global community continues to face huge challenges in moving past lip service for children and truly protect their many rights as articulated under the CRC. While the unprecedented ratification of this treaty, by all UN Member States but one, speaks strongly about the world’s unanimity for children’s rights, the global community, more often than not, falls short in fulfilling the provisions under the CRC. Violations of children’s rights have grave ramifications, particularly when they happen in a systemic manner and on a massive scale. Such is the case in relation to the rights of refugee and asylum-seeking children. Under Article 22 of the CRC, a child or young person who leaves their country of origin to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster, has the right to appropriate protection and provisions, such as health, education, and housing. The rights under the CRC govern all children regardless of where in the world they are located; thus, refugee and asylum-seeking children do not lose any of their rights simply because they have moved from one country to another [1]. However, in reality[1], this is not the case and many of these children, depending on where in the world they move to, are denied many of their rights. Often, the host States, who have a clear set of obligations under the CRC, fail to fulfill their responsibilities for refugee and asylum-seeking children and by doing so, subject children to a discriminatory treatment. Such discrimination can not only adversely impact children’s health and development, but also violate their human rights under the CRC.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

Millions of children continue to arrive at contemporary state borders seeking entry and protection. Many are turned away, and many others are treated as invisible or with suspicion as false or overwhelming petitioners. For the sake of these children and for the good of all humanity, there is a pressing need to reposition refugee children in international and national discourse on protection and rights. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC; UN General Assembly 1989) clearly identifies refugee children as rights-bearers, but what are their rights, and how do contemporary international and national communities define and implement their rights? How well the CRC’s safeguards of refugee children’s rights are implemented depends partly on what it means to be ‘a refugee child’, and partly on how the rights-bearing status of refugee children is recognized, respected, and implemented in state immigration and legal systems. We argue that the CRC’s rights-based guidelines are more appropriate for the protection of refugee children than welfare-based approaches and demonstrate how a rights-based approach fits analyses of refugee children’s negotiations of their intertwining developmental and refugee trajectories over time in the sociocultural context. The CRC’s right-based approach gives special recognition to refugee children as children with special needs. We analyze the CRC’s articles in terms of their application to the needs and rights of refugee children. In contravention of the CRC’s rights-based position on refugee children and responding to what they interpret as a current refugee crisis and populist politics, contemporary states favor national well-being and border security over the well-being of refugee children. There have been examined evidence that states have worked to relegate refugee children to the margins of protection discourse and to the margins of society. There are persistent tendencies to either overlook refugee children as invisible or to deny that they are children or refugees. Argument for a radical repositioning of refugee children into the center of the protection dialogue and into the center of state policy and practice. Only such a central position will give refugee children the due respect that is responsive to the intermingling of their refugee and developmental experiences and support their rights to develop fully in the present and future as envisaged in the CRC Preamble.

At least twenty three countries in Africa are either engaged in some form of armed conflict or are just emerging from one. The violence in Darfur, the never-ending lawlessness in Somalia, and the on-going civil wars in the Sahrawi Republic, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Chad as well as the recent history of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Manu River states of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea make Africa one of the most unstable  continents  on  the  globe.  Additionally, political instability in states such as Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, Central African Republic, Ethiopia and Eritrea has caused massive social dislocation, resulting in the movement of people seeking refuge from the dangerous situations in which they find themselves. At the end of 2005, the total number of people in Africa who had sought refuge in a country other than their own was estimated at approximately 2.6 million refugees (UNHCR 2005), whilst the total number of internally displaced  persons  (IDPs)  numbered  a  little  over  12  million  (Internal  Displacement Monitoring Centre 2006, 51). However, although these forced movements affect all the members of the population, their impact on children is disproportionate. UNHCR estimates that of the people who had crossed frontiers to escape, almost forty five percent were children under the age of eighteen, whilst up to 60 percent of IDPs were children. However, this number increased in 2020 with a total number of over 18 million people from Africa who have sought refuge in a country other than theirs (UNHCR 2020a). In total, in 2019, 33.5 million “persons of concern” – a category comprising refugees, asylum-seekers, IDPs, returned refugees, returned IDPs, stateless populations under the UNHCR’s mandate, and other individuals to whom the UNHCR has extended services issue from Africa (UNHCR 2020, 82). Due to the factors such as their young age or, in some cases, the absence of a guardian, refugee children face a myriad of risks over and above those faced by other refugees. These risks include unlawful military recruitment, sexual exploitation and abuse, child labor, denial of access to education and basic assistance, and even death. Due to their heightened vulnerability, it has always been accepted that refugee children require a raised level of protection and assistance in order to find durable solutions for their particularly tragic situation. However, despite the existence of multitudes of refugee children on the continent and the recognition of their vulnerable status, the African human rights system did not initially  provide  for  a  special  protection  regime  for  addressing  their  particular  plight. Refugee  protection  under  the  African  system  was  sourced  from  the  OAU  Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa and the ACHPR. But these instruments failed provide special protection to refugee children and the result was that their protection was left to the vicissitudes of goodwill (or lack thereof) from the host states and international refugee organizations.

In Cameroon, there are 1,980,811 persons of Concern (OCHA, 2021), 454,854 refugees (UNHCR, Government, 2021), the number of asylum seekers is 6,788 (UNHCR, Government, 2021), IDPs in North-West and South-West Regions is estimated at 711,056 (OCHA, 2021). It should be noted that these numbers keep increasing as the years go by as it shows 70,684 people of concern benefitted from shelter assistance (61,538 IDPs and 9,146 refugees) (UNHCR, 2020), 58,897 refugee children had access to education in Cameroon (28% of registered refugee children) (UNHCR,2020). Childhood is a period of rapid growth and development in all physical, mental, spiritual, and social domains. Despite their importance, protection and promotion of rights during this stage are seriously compromised when it comes to refugee and asylum-seeking children. Prolonged exposure to unfavorable conditions—for example, hunger, limited access to education and health services, low socioeconomic status, and exposure to violence, war, abuse, and exploitation—has lasting effects on a child’s ability to thrive. These experiences can be considered as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). The accumulation of ACEs results in increased negative health outcomes[2] and can have lasting impacts later in life. For example, ACEs are associated with mental health problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)), chronic conditions (e.g., heart disease, diabetes, cancer), high risk-taking behaviours (e.g., substance abuse and unsafe sexual practices), and lower academic achievement and income well into adulthood. Subsequent lifelong adverse health outcomes in different domains of development, are experienced by children undergoing these circumstances before, during, and after seeking asylum.

1.3 Justification of Study

The fleeing of people for security problems nowadays is alarming. The improvement in security challenges in the world in general and Cameroon in particular. Cameroon has been a place of refuge for thousands of Africans from different countries fleeing persecution in their countries of origin. Furthermore Refugees children face so many protection risks in their countries of asylum particularly children unaccompanied or separated from their families.

1.4 Research Questions

This research generally seeks to answer what are the rights of refugee children in their countries of asylum? In answering this question, the following sub-questions will be addressed:

• What are the rights that are meant to be enjoyed by refugee children in their host country?
• What are the specific factors that hinder the access to these rights for refugee Children in Douala?

• How can the barriers be overcome to eradicate the infringement and effects they have on the access of these rights on refugee children?

1.5 Objectives of the Study

General Objectives

The general objective of this study is to investigate the right of refugee children in their countries of asylum and in this case, Douala-Cameroon.

Specific Objectives

The specific objectives that will be used to answer the sub- questions include:

• To examine the rights that are meant to be enjoyed by refugee children in their host country.
• To analyse the specific factors that hinder the access to these rights for refugee Children in Douala.
• To assess how the barriers can be overcome to eradicate the infringement and effects they have on the access of these rights on refugee children.

LAW PROJECT TOPICS WITH MATERIALS