and the Construction of Vulnerability - Child Trafficking

These restrictive approaches to migration also have serious implications for children’s
rights as set out in the CRC. They threaten many migrant children’s (including
child asylum seekers and those who could be described as Victims of Trafficking)
rights under several Articles in the CRC.
A review of existing evidence also reveals that states more generally play a crucial
role in constructing the vulnerability of certain groups of children who migrate
through the immigration regimes they set in place and the immigration controls they
enact. It suggests that the rights violations that child migrants experience are not the
inevitable consequence of migration. They rather reflect a lack of political will to
protect the rights of those who move, and a prioritising of immigration control over
the protection of migrant children’s rights. And it further shows that state actors are
often directly responsible for the violation of a wide array of migrant children’s rights,
including on occasion the right to life itself.
Given that state actors are known to sometimes indiscriminately use violence
against undocumented migrants at borders; and given the general lack of protection
offered by states to undocumented children, the often lengthy detention of child
migrants, the widespread practice of repatriating children without reference to the
specific needs and best interest of the child, the deportation of families with schoolage
children, it is perhaps worth asking why so many CR agencies have singled out
“trafficking” as the most pressing migration-related child rights problem of our time.
This question is all the more troubling given the definitional and conceptual problems
associated with the term “trafficking”, in particular, the extremely blurred line
between disadvantaged children’s labour migration as a strategy for improving difficult
life conditions, and “child trafficking”. When “child trafficking” is confused
with independent child migration and framed as a criminal justice issue, anti-trafficking
measures are often indistinguishable from measures to prevent migration per
se, and so can actually make child migrants more, rather than less, vulnerable to
abuse and exploitation.
This report attempts to look beyond the current policy-emphasis on “trafficking”
and “unaccompanied” child asylum seekers to consider broader questions about
when and why migration can be associated with the violation of children’s rights. It
looks at the global context in which child migration is set and the factors that
prompt children to migrate; the problems and risks that they face in the transit from
one country or region to another; and their experience in the destination country.
Within this, particular attention is paid to the relationship between children’s immigration
status and their vulnerability to rights’ violations in the destination country.
The report then considers evidence on the experience of children who are left behind
when one or both parents migrate. Finally, it identifies areas where there is a particular
need for further research and analysis and considers policy implications for
CR agencies. Key points to emerge are as follows.
● There is a need for more and better research on child migration. The existing body
of research on child migration does not provide an adequate basis on which to
plan interventions or develop policy. Many of the key sources of information on
migration as a whole are not disaggregated by age; intense but selective advocacy
activity on particular sub-groups of child migrants (refugees, trafficked chil-
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Child Migration and the Construction of Vulnerability