By Thabisani Dube
United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Alison Parker, has called on Southern African governments to strengthen child protection systems within migration management, warning that the climate crisis is increasingly becoming a child rights crisis.
Speaking at the opening of the Migration Dialogue for Southern Africa (MIDSA) Technical Committee Meeting in Victoria Falls, Parker commended the Government of Zimbabwe for its leadership in ensuring that the protection of children on the move remains central to regional discussions on migration.
“We meet at a defining moment. Across Southern Africa, the migration landscape is shifting fast,” Parker said, urging delegates to ensure that migration policies prioritise the rights and safety of children.
Citing a recent UNICEF report presented at the Africa Climate Conference, Parker revealed that over 51 million children in Eastern and Southern Africa are living through overlapping crises such as climate disasters, displacement, hunger, and disease. Between 2017 and 2023, 8.8 million children were displaced by weather-related events — an average of 2,400 children every day forced from their homes by floods.
“This climate emergency is also a migration emergency,” she said. “Families are being uprooted not only by poverty or conflict but increasingly by environmental collapse. And children are at the greatest risk.”
Parker noted that the absence of reliable data, particularly along the Southern Route, makes many children “invisible” in policy decisions. She called for child-sensitive migration systems rooted in rights, coordinated across borders, and supported by evidence-based data.
Highlighting progress across the region, Parker acknowledged that SADC member states have strengthened child protection frameworks and aligned national laws with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and Agenda 2040.
“Children on the move are no longer an afterthought — they are a core priority within the MIDSA agenda,” she said. “That is real progress.”
She urged governments to ensure that no child is detained because of migration, and that every child, regardless of status, has access to education, healthcare, and birth registration.
Parker also underscored the need for cross-border coordination, digital data systems, and capacity-building for frontline officers such as immigration personnel, police, and social workers.
“Protection must follow the child from country of origin, to transit, to destination,” she said. “Every child on the move deserves to be seen, to be safe, and to be protected — not invisible, not excluded, not left behind.”
The MIDSA Technical Committee Meeting runs from 24 to 27 October at the Elephant Hills Hotel in Victoria Falls, ahead of the Ministerial Conference scheduled to adopt key regional migration policies.
