Lately, I have started to collect what I sometimes call “fairy tales” when I visit the areas where my organization, ChildFund, works with children and families who have fled their homes for a better, safer life. One girl I met in Mexico had come all the way from Colombia. I said to her, “Oh, you must be tired!” But she was so optimistic: “We’re very close!” She told me her love story, about a boy that she had left behind.

Of course, too many people also experience horror stories, like Nora and her son who has severe disabilities, fleeing Honduras due to death threats from a gang that had been extorting them. And there is Rose, whose father was killed in a flare-up of violence in South Sudan and whose mother left her alone at 12 in a northern Uganda refugee settlement, with sole responsibility for her two little brothers’ care.

My organization, ChildFund, is a child-focused global nonprofit that works to connect children in vulnerable communities with the people, resources and institutions they need to grow up healthy, educated, skilled and safe. For a child, being forced to leave their home means the loss of their connections with most of what makes it possible for them to survive, let alone thrive.

By the end of 2022, there was a record-setting 43.3 million children on the move, nearly 60% of them fleeing due to conflict and violence. Children also move for many other reasons such as forcible displacement due to climate change, lack of opportunity, trafficking, domestic violence — often a mix. Some become asylum seekers. Some are returning to their home countries. Some have documents, others have none. Some are unaccompanied minors, and others travel with caregivers or relatives. “Children on the Move” is an internationally accepted term that encompasses this array of scenarios affecting children who experience migration, displacement and the effects of either or both.

While their experiences vary, all people who migrate are entitled to their basic human rights — including the right to move, and to do so safely.

The needs of Children on the Move vary depending on a dynamic spectrum of circumstances and factors including their age, gender, ethnicity and other demographic characteristics; the forces driving their migration, any of which have implications for their mental and physical health; local conditions along the road, including legal frameworks and community capacity or inclination to welcome them; who is traveling with them, whether caregiver, relative, friend or no one at all; violence that may erupt due to stress or even criminals they encounter — and much more.

Read the full article about children on the move by Radwa el Manssy at Global Washington.