Context: Recently, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has published a report named UN the “Lost at Home” report.
Key Points of the Report

• Almost 10 million new displacements in 2019 were recorded in East Asia and the Pacific (39 %) — and almost the same number in South Asia (9.5 million).
• Almost 33 million new displacements were recorded in 2019 — around 25 million were due to natural disasters and 8.5 million as consequence of conflict and violence.
• Of these, there were 12 million new displacements involving children, including around 3.8 million of them caused by conflict and violence, and 8.2 million due to disasters linked mostly to weather-related events.
• The report said that natural disasters resulted in more new displacements than conflict and violence.

Displacement in India

• India, the Philippines, Bangladesh and China all suffered from natural disasters leading to displacement in the millions, which accounted for 69% of global disaster-induced displacements.
• These were overwhelmingly caused by extreme conditions created by dangerous storms and floods.
• In India, the total number of new internal displacements in 2019 stood at 5,037,000 – including 5,018,000 due to natural disasters and 19,000 because of conflict and violence.

On Internal Displacement

• The report added that today, more children than ever before are displaced within their own countries.
• At the end of 2019, an estimated total of 46 million people were internally displaced by conflict and violence.
• About 19 million children were displaced within their own countries due to conflict and violence in 2019, more than in any other year, making them among the most vulnerable to the global spread of COVID-19.
• The largest number of internally displaced children due to conflict are found in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Internally displaced persons are concentrated in two regions the Middle East and North Africa and West and Central Africa.

Suggestions

• The report looks at the risks internally displaced children face —child labour, child marriage, trafficking among them — and the actions urgently needed to protect them.
• It calls for strategic investments and a united effort by governments, civil society to address the child-specific drivers of displacement, in particular, violence, exploitation and abuse.
• It also calls on governments convening under the High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement to invest in actions that will provide protection and equitable access to services for all internally displaced children and their families.
• Governments and humanitarian partners should work together to keep them safe, healthy, learning and protected.
• Better, timely and accessible data disaggregated by age and gender is also critical to delivering on this agenda. Internally displaced children and youth themselves must have a seat at the table.