JP/Apriadi Gunawan

Adopted on Nov. 2 at the 35th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok, the ASEAN Declaration on the Rights of Children in the Context of Migration highlights the increased commitment of ASEAN member states on migration issues that affect the region, starting with the less controversial subject for the organization: children. It was adopted in conjunction with 30 years of the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The preamble notes with “deep concern the millions of children worldwide who are displaced from their homes, including by conflict, poverty, disaster, climate change and environmental degradation, experience exploitation, deprivation and discrimination on their journeys within and across borders”.

The term “migrant” is preferable to “refugee” because first, it covers a larger scope than “refugee” as defined under international law. Second, refugees are a sensitive issue in ASEAN because of its link in recent years to the Rohingya, the persecuted minority ethnic group in Myanmar.

Although all ASEAN states have signed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Global Compact on Refugees, only Cambodia and the Philippines are parties to the UNHCR’s 1951 Refugee Convention.

The region’s general view is that the convention provides a “Western” definition of refugees that does not fit the Southeast Asian experience where many have migrated due to poverty, inequality and natural disasters, apart from escaping violence. This argument dates back to the 1970s, when a few regional nations that were still concentrating on developing their fledgling sovereign states — including Indonesia — generously provided temporary safe havens to refugees fleeing the Indochina War.

Despite the historical, legal and textual debates, child refugees are the most vulnerable beings, even more so when they are unaccompanied. As a child, they cannot fight for their rights on their own, as they are still dependent on adults. The duty-bearing role of states is desperately needed to provide access to sustainable livelihood in advance.

If the declaration is turned into action, it would signal the burden-sharing obligations of ASEAN member states to help these refugee children that reside within their territorial jurisdictions, irrespective of the children’s immigration status.

At the very least, this means that all basic provisions of children’s rights should be made available to them. The declaration stipulates these provisions as health care, decent living standards, education, justice and the protection of physical and mental integrity.

Among other provisions, ensuring that child refugees are allowed to enroll in local schools — as some local administrations in Indonesia have done — is of crucial importance, because it opens the door to living a healthy life as children. Linking schooling to building qualifications is an oversimplification. For these children, being able to attend school is beyond increasing their individual proficiency and skills.

As refugees, they can temporarily live in a transit country for an extended period. In Indonesia, it could be five to 10 years or even longer before they are resettled to third countries.

Imagine living a life without being able to at least determine the path to your future, not to mention the mental impacts of experiencing conflict in your home country and seeing your parents becoming more frustrated as they live in limbo.

Allowing refugee children to go to school will reduce their burdens. For the children themselves, doing so can at least help them forget their past by giving them a taste of the normal childhood of engaging in teaching and learning activities and building friendships with local children.

Such an experience would naturally relieve some emotional distress for their parents as they become busy with day-to-day tasks like waking up and preparing breakfast for their children, taking them to school and picking them up, and helping them with their homework as best as they can.

Legally speaking, while child refugees remain “unprotected” in Indonesia even though no laws or policies exist that explicitly disadvantage them, the country has shown good improvement and examples in schooling refugee children.

For instance, it is debatable whether the Child Protection Law also applies to refugee children or only to the children of Indonesian citizens. Also, Presidential Decree No. 125/2016 on foreign refugees does not include educational facilities or any other provisions related to education.

The good news is that more than 530 of the 1,700 school-aged child refugees in Indonesia have been provided with access to education. This figure covers all child refugees in cities such as Medan in North Sumatra, Makassar in South Sulawesi, Tangerang in Banten, Batam in the Riau Islands and Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara. Most recently, Riau’s Pekanbaru followed suit in September by making education available to more than 80 refugee children.

Although challenges like certification and language barrier remain, that refugee children cannot follow the local curriculum is an underestimation. A principal even said that one of his refugee students represented the school at the Science Olympiad.

Above all, while adjustment is needed in placing them in the appropriate education level according to their age and skills, ensuring normalcy in their lives remains at the core of fulfilling the needs of refugee children.

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Founder and head of the Institute for Migration and Refugees at Policylab, a Jakarta-based think tank and academy in Indonesia.

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