EU-IOM Joint Initiative

for Migrant Protection and Reintegration

The protection of migrant children in the Horn of Africa is the focus of a new partnership agreement between the eight-member regional trade bloc, The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the UN Migration Agency IOM. 

Scores of child migrants travel from the Horn of Africa region, many with the intention of reaching the Gulf States via Yemen. Estimates are that they constitute about a fifth of all migrants on this route to the Middle East, known as the Eastern Route. 

The average age of child migrants ranges between 13 and 17, while in some cases, children as young as eight-years-old migrate on their own. They face a range of risks such as being held by criminals against their will, being forced to work without pay, anxiety due to fear of detention and deportation, living on streets under abysmal conditions, and lack of access to services. 

The IGAD-IOM agreement, signed end of February 2021, aims to ease some of these risks. This would happen by ensuring a harmonized approach across three IGAD member states – Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia.  

The partnership is designed to mobilise political and financial commitment in order to expand child protection responses in the region. It seeks to strengthen joint advocacy and capacity development as well as mainstream child protection and child-centered approaches within the IGAD regional programmes. 

The partnership will also support IGAD to build the capacity of relevant government entities to identify and address child-rights violations, expand national and regional partnerships with child protection actors, as well as improve access to services for children on the move. 

Facilitating the agreement was the EU-IOM Joint Initiative for Migrant Protection and Reintegration in the Horn of Africa (the EU-IOM Joint Initiative).

“IGAD welcomes this partnership as it intends to improve systems that respond to and prevent all forms of abuse, violence, exploitation and neglect especially of the most vulnerable in the cross-border areas of IGAD region,” said Fathia Alwan, Director of Health and Social Development Division for the organisation.  

Senior coordinator of the EU-IOM Joint Initiative Julia Hartlieb said: “Poverty, along with the search for a better life, are the main drivers of migration in the region, but when such movements involve children, there is an urgent need to take action.”

Migration in the region is triggered by a combination of persistent insecurity and conflict, harsh climatic conditions, public heath emergencies alongside socio-economic drivers and more traditional seasonal and livelihood factors. These factors disproportionally affect children including migrant and refugee children, placing them at higher risk of abuse and exploitation.  

IGAD is in the early stages of developing its child programming portfolio and the partnership with IOM adds value towards efforts to integrate child-focused approaches into on-going programmes.  

 About the EU-IOM Joint Initiative

Launched in December 2016, with funding from the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, the EU-IOM Joint Initiative brings together 26 African countries of the Sahel and Lake Chad region, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa, the EU and IOM around the goal of ensuring migration is safer, more informed, and better governed for both migrants and their communities.

For more information please contact the IOM Regional Office in Nairobi: Julia Hartlieb, email: jhartlieb@iom.int; or Wilson Johwa, email: wjohwa@iom.int.