By: Staff Writer
September 8, 2023
The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in a recent report said that within the first six months of 2023 more than 40,000 children made the dangerous crossing through the Darien Gap to enter into the US.
Children are migrating through Latin America and the Caribbean in record numbers and now account for a larger share of the migrant population than in any other region in the world. Globally, children make up around 13 per cent of the migrant population, but they account for 25 per cent of people on the move in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2022, around 250,000 migrants, including 40,000 children, crossed the dangerous Darien jungle. In the first six months of 2023, more than 196,000 migrants had done so, including more than 40,000 children.
The report also said: “The root causes of migration in the region are highly variable, from socioeconomic factors like widespread poverty, limited livelihood opportunities, structural inequality, food insecurity and barriers to essential services, to a desire among families to secure a more hopeful future for their children. People may also leave their countries to escape violence – domestic, gender-based, gang-related and political. Meanwhile, disasters caused by events like hurricanes and earthquakes have also caused significant internal displacement in the region. These factors are being amplified by climate change and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
“More and more children are on the move, at an increasingly young age, often alone and from diverse countries of origin, including from as far away as Africa and Asia,” said Garry Conille, director of UNICEF Latin America and the Caribbean.
“When they cross several countries and sometimes the entire region, disease and injury, family separation and abuse may plague their journeys and, even if they make it to their destination, their futures often remain at risk.”
The physical risks along these irregular routes are innumerable, especially for migrant children. In 2022, at least 92 migrant children died or went missing while moving through the region, more than any other year since 2014. These risks are compounded by the almost-complete lack of access to essential services like health care, nutrition, safe water, sanitation and protection. While in transit, migrant children might also be forced into forms of child labour, leaving them at risk of exploitation and abuse.
The 100-kilometre trek through the Darien jungle, also known as the Darién Gap, is especially perilous, riddled with natural hazards to which young children are particularly vulnerable. Children are also at risk of diarrhoea, respiratory diseases, dehydration from the complete lack of drinking water, insect-borne diseases and attacks by wild animals.
More and more children are on the move of an increasingly young age, often alone and from diverse countries of origin, including as far away as Africa and Asia. The major flows in child migration, and migration more broadly, are concentrated in the movement within and through northern Central America and Mexico, the movement of Haitians from Haiti and between other countries in the region, and the movement of migrants from Venezuela. But there are also smaller, yet significant, movements of people within the region, including those moving from Cuba and Nicaragua, those moving within and beyond the Andean countries of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru, and the extracontinental flows of migrants arriving to the region from Africa and Asia.