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The first unaccompanied refugee children from the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais have arrived in the United Kingdom ahead of the demolition of the settlement by French authorities. The first group of children to arrive under the Dubs amendment were immediately set upon by the press, with Conservative MP David Davies taking to Twitter to claim that they did not look young enough to be brought into the UK. The MP for Monmouth called for medical tests to prove their age, but his comments were quickly condemned by medical professionals, social workers and many members of the public as unethical and potentially harmful to the young people being reunited with family in the UK. While the House of Lords called for 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees to be allowed to enter the UK, Home Secretary Amber Rudd has suggested that plans are only in place to accommodate 100. This huge disparity is raising fears over where the rest will go and how many will resort to paying smugglers to cross the border illegally. French authorities say they plan to destroy the Calais camp within days, and it as yet unclear how refugee children will be accounted for and protected.
 

Police in China have detained 75 people in connection with a widespread network that illegally determined the gender of unborn children. The illegal service - aimed at expectant parents wanting male children - smuggled fetal blood samples to Hong Kong for gender testing, according to officials. It operated across much of China and brought in a total of $30m (£25m). Despite decades of campaigning, Chinese families, particularly in rural areas, continue to prize boys above girls. At least 300 people were reportedly involved in the illegal service, demonstrating the scale of the demand for the tests in the country. China ended its one-child policy last year, marking the end of a policy which was seen as contributing to the country’s skewed gender balance. However, Chinese population officials this week warned that the imbalance, 113 boys for every 100 girls, would remain for years to come despite the end of the one-child era.

At least half of the world's 65 million school-age children with disabilities are missing classes because not enough money is being budgeted for their needs. Stigma and misinformation surrounding disability as well as a lack of data on the numbers of disabled children contributed to the problem. "Children with disabilities are constantly left at the very back of the queue, and the impact on both individuals and economies can be disastrous," Julia McGeown of Handicap International said in a statement. The report by the International Disability and Development Consortium said the exclusion of children with disabilities was a major obstacle to meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. The new report urges governments to provide facilities for the education of disabled children within the mainstream system.

In the United States, Barack Obama signed into law a new Bill creating a Commission on Native Children, tasked with identifying and finding solutions to problems facing Native American youths. The Bill, introduced by Senator Heidi Heitkamp, is intended to determine where federal resources are going and how they can be better deployed, with the 11-member commission expected to produce a report in three years. In late September, the Obama administration announced that it agreed to pay more than $492 million to 17 Native American tribes as a result of lawsuits accusing the federal government of mismanaging natural resources and other tribal assets, while earlier this month, the US Court of Appeals ruled against two Native American tribes allowing construction on the Dakota Access Pipeline to move forward.

 

Sale of children

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has rejected a draft recommendation on children's rights and surrogacy, following heated discussions. The recommendation proposed drawing up European guidelines to safeguard children's rights in surrogacy arrangements and work with the Hague Conference on International Private Law in their work on this issue. It condemned for-profit surrogacy but took no position on altruistic surrogacy (though the line separating the two is blurred). However, proposed amendments rejected surrogacy in all its forms. Fiercely divided on the issue, some voiced concerns about the potential implications for the rights of women and reducing a child to a contract. Others stated that surrogacy is a fact and it is not feasible to just vote children who have been born in this way out of existence, arguing that it is better to regulate the practice in accordance with the best interests of the child than to try to impose an unrealistic ban.

Read CRIN’s special edition Children in Court CRINmail on surrogacy for more information on this topic.

The chief executive of a website known for sexually oriented advertisements has been arrested and charged with conspiracy and pimping a minor after raids on the company’s headquarters in Dallas, United States. The website, Backpage.com, which describes itself as the second-largest online classified advertising service in the country, has faced accusations in various jurisdictions of sex trafficking, but this is the first time criminal charges have been brought against its staff based on these claims. Carl Ferrer, 55, the chief executive, will face an extradition hearing in Texas that could return him to California to face charges. Interviews with children filed for the case revealed they took out advertisements on Backpage.com after they were forced into prostitution. A 15-year-old girl said she was a forced into prostitution when she was 13, and that Backpage “profits off of women and men,” whether they earn money or are forced into it. A congressional investigation this year found that the website masked the fact that it advertised sex acts with minors as adult classifieds by editing the details.

Food security and stunting

Five in six children under two years old in developing countries are undernourished and at risk of irreversible physical and mental harm, according to a report by UNICEF. The findings reveal that detrimental nutritional practices such as the delayed introduction of solid foods and poor food variety are widespread, depriving many infants of the energy and nutrients needed for proper physical and cognitive development. Stunting rates are highest in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but studies also show that junk foods low in micronutrients and protein are becoming increasingly common in children’s diets in rich and poor countries alike. The report was published ahead of World Food Day on 16 October, and highlighted that improvements to the quantity and quality of nutrition for young children could save 100,000 lives a year.

A UN-backed study has revealed that childhood hunger is costing Chad almost $1 billion per year - 9.5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) - in costs related to health, education and lower productivity in adult life. More than half of Chad’s adults suffered from stunting as children, preventing them from achieving their full potential at the country’s expense, according to the Cost of Hunger in Africa report on Chad, the ninth in a series of reports looking at the consequences of child undernutrition in the continent which have concluded that African economies are losing between 1.9 and 16 percent of their GDP as a result of child undernutrition. The report calls for increased investment in nutrition with special attention to the early stages of life, and it is hoped that drawing attention to the steep cost of hunger in Chad will lead to more aggressive measures to eliminate stunting.

In India, the Bombay High Court has expressed concern over state government apathy in addressing the malnutrition problems faced by tribal communities in Maharashtra, observing that tribal peoples have been neglected since the British era and continue to suffer disproportionately from undernourishment. The observations were made during a series of public interest litigations highlighting the deaths of tribal children due to malnutrition and the poor quality of food provided by the government as part of ‘take-home rations’ schemes. The Court expressed dissatisfaction at the government’s submissions, finding that there has been no progress in living standards for tribal communities and that the budgetary allocations for tribal welfare are insufficient, despite claims that the number of child deaths has fallen. The Court has given the government a final chance to file an affidavit outlining its budgetary and policy proposals, reserving the matter for a further hearing in late October.