Lord McConnell: Government needs to put the Sustainable Development Goals at the heart of their vision for a ‘Global Britain’
4 min read
The UK government must use our voice and our global clout to say clearly that declarations and summits are not enough, says Lord McConnell.
Capsized boats in the Mediterranean Sea; Rohinga children terrified of the return to Myanmar; Syrian boys and girls spending all their school years outside the country in camps with ‘temporary education’. These images are the global scandal of our time. Displaced children suffering due to conflicts and changes that are simply not their fault.
And away from the spotlight, in Northern Uganda, Yemen, Greece, and in detention camps in Libya more children sit and wait as foes refuse to talk, as traffickers decide their fate, and as the so-called international community displays impotence or indifference.
What have we become? In the 21st Century, in a world of skills and knowledge, of instant communications and incredible wealth, what have we become when these children are not a source of global outrage. We should be angry, and we should be demanding real action from all who have the power to help.
When nations meet in Morocco next month to agree a Global Compact for Migration, it is time for a more ambitious and consistent vision - and for decisive action.
24 million children are living in forced displacements. Almost half are refugees and asylum seekers who have been forced to flee their home countries, the rest internally displaced by violence and conflict. Millions more, not included in these numbers, are internally displaced due to natural disasters.
These children do not make these treacherous journeys out of choice. Unaccompanied children leave conflict zones to run away from recruitment into armed force or avoid the violence. Others flee forced marriage, domestic abuse, slavery or detention. They face abuse along the way, and even those in ‘safe’ camps face uncertainty and lack of access to the norms we expect for our kids.
There are programmes in place to protect children on the move run by the UK government, the EU and the agencies of the United Nations. But they are too little and too inconsistent. Too often driven by short term pressures and too rarely long term, transformational and properly resourced.
The long-term future of displaced children is connected to the success of the United Nation Global Goals. These Goals were designed to build long-lasting development programmes, tackling the underlying causes of extreme poverty, violence and climate change. This is yet another reason why the UK government needs to put the SDGs at the heart of their vision for a ‘Global Britain’.
And the UK government needs to do three things. The first, is the endorsement and adoption of the Global Compact on Migration being agreed in December 2018. The UK needs to send high level Ministerial representation to the Summit, underlining our commitment to strengthening systems of protection for refugees and safe routes for migrants. Secondly, the government should redefine the terms of the Immigration Rules on Refugee Family Reunion to ensure that a broader range of family members, not just parents, are able to sponsor a child’s passage to the UK, ensuring they arrive via safe and legal routes. And thirdly we must use our voice and our global clout to say clearly that declarations and summits are not enough. It is time for more decisive action to create managed migration routes; for the laws on refugees to be upheld by all; and for long term programmes that provide hope and freedom from violence and abuse.
Our world is developing in numerous and awe-inspiring ways, through technology, activism and new partnerships like the Global Goals. But if the systematic barriers that obstruct the road to peace, the lack of strong institutions of justice and good governance, and the shared prosperity that provides opportunity, are not tackled, the numbers of displaced children will continue to rise. Children will continue to climb aboard rafts to cross seas, will continue to walk to where they hope will be a better, less violence life. And they will continue to suffer and die along the way.
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