On Wednesday June 15, UNICEF launched a new multimedia migration portal called 'Children in Migration'
UNICEF Office in Tajikistan says the portal was launched by UNICEF within the EU & UNICEF co-funded ‘Protecting Children and Families Affected by Migration in Southeast, South, and Central Asia’ project during its concluding Project Advisory Committee meeting with key stakeholders, including the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population (MoLMEP).
The ‘Protecting Children and Families Affected by Migration’ project co-funded by the EU and UNICEF and implemented by UNICEF and MoLMEP, was launched in 2018 with an aim to support the children and families affected by migration in 26 districts with healthcare, social services, benefits, education, vocational skills, etc. In last 4,5 years, over 10,500 children received their identity documents and over 1,000 families were supported with access to essential services.
“Although migration often leads to opportunity, it can also result in greater hardship, especially for children and families left behind. Women who have been abandoned by their migrant husbands are generally considered socially deviant and undesirable in Tajik society, and this can have a deep psychosocial effect on their children,” Mr. Marc Buchmann, Head of Cooperation of the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan, said.
The ‘Children in Migration’ multimedia portal is reportedly developed jointly with the Ministry of Labor, Migration and Employment of the Population and is designed to facilitate discussion among general population, migrants, their family members, policy makers, employers, and service providers on impact of migration on families left behind and call for collective action to address the challenges faced by children and families affected by migration.
“Children and families, we worked with, shared their experience and wanted to let others know that hope was always there, and change was possible even with little support. To share the stories of real people, we developed a multimedia portal, which accommodates the stories of real children and their families narrated by themselves,” Ms. Zamira Komilova, Child Protection Specialist, noted.
In addition, the multimedia migration portal will help to expand available resources and experiences on supporting children and families affected by migration, approaches to improve parenting skills and emotional support and methods to empower women left behind.
The migration multimedia portal is available on www.childrenmigration.com
UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere. UNICEF operates in Tajikistan since 1993.
