refugee action blog

Written by Gareth Hankinson – Youth Advocacy Worker, Refugee Action.

The Get Connected Project at Refugee Action has been running for a number of years and over that time has enabled unaccompanied refugee and asylum seeking children to exert their rights as protected by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Get Connected Project, supported by BBC Children in Need, works with those who are between 15 and 18 years of age, are claiming asylum and are without any one who has parental responsibility for them. Through the work of the project we have been able to uphold the rights of some of the most vulnerable young people as they go through a difficult process, were their immigration status sometimes comes before the fact that they are children.

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By Lisa Nandy, Policy Adviser at The Children’s Society

Twenty years ago the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the United Nations. It established an international benchmark for the treatment of children across the world, for the first time recognising children as individuals with their own rights, which demand universal respect from governments across the world.

The UK has never incorporated the CRC directly into law, so for twenty years those landmark rights have been beyond the grasp of children in Britain. Yet for one group: children seeking asylum, they have not even been an aspiration. Nearly 20 years ago the UK entered a reservation to the CRC, placing immigration considerations above children’s rights, sending a strong signal that these children do not deserve equal treatment and setting in train decades of discrimination.

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