Almost half of the globally displaced populations are children. UNHCR is dedicated to protect all of them and address their special needs in order to ensure their safety, development and well-being and recover their childhood.

A particularly vulnerable group of children are unaccompanied minors: during the long and often dangerous journey they get separated from their family or they are sent alone with smugglers. Some have already become orphans back at home. The traumatic experiences, poverty, lack of education most of them suffered while at home together with the hardships and danger of their journey make them all the more vulnerable.

The Age, Gender and Diversity Mainstreaming (AGDM) strategy of UNHCR aims at including the special situation and specific needs and concerns of children of all age groups and gender in the planning and programming of operations. The participatory assessments apply a special methodology when interviewing refugee and asylum-seeker children. The UNHCR guidelines on the prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) address the issue of the vulnerability of girls and offer practical advice on how to carry out protection and reception activities in order to eliminate this type of violence.