Abstract
In this paper we analyze the contemporary ambivalence to child migration identified by Jacqueline Bhabha and propose a developmental relational approach that repositions child refugees as active participants and rights-bearers in society. Ambivalence involves tensions between protection of refugee children and protection of national borders, public services and entrenched images. Unresolved ambivalence supports failures to honor the rights of refugee children according to international law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. There is failure to protect and include them in national public services and in international coordination of public health and wellbeing. We identify misrepresentations of childhood and refugeeness that lie behind ambivalence and the equitable organization and delivery of public services for health and wellbeing. With illustrative studies, we propose a developmental relational framework for understanding refugee children’s contributions in the sociocultural environment. Contrary to the image of passive victims, refugee children interact with other people and institutions in the co-construction of situated encounters. A developmental relational understanding of children’s ‘co-actions’ in the social environment provides a foundation for addressing misrepresentations of childhood and refugeeness that deny refugee children protection and inclusion as rights-bearers. We point to directions in research and practice to recognize their rights to thrive and contribute to society.
Highlights
The future of humanity is tied to the survival and thriving of its children, but that survival is threatened by global and national inabilities to protect, provide for and include millions of refugee children in public services and health care [1,2,3]
We identify the dimensions of twenty-first century ambivalence towards the protection of refugee children and specify how ambivalence impedes their inclusion in public health systems
We show with empirical examples, how refugee children are dynamically interactive in specific situations
Summary
The future of humanity is tied to the survival and thriving of its children, but that survival is threatened by global and national inabilities to protect, provide for and include millions of refugee children in public services and health care [1,2,3]. The tension generated by simultaneously holding instead of resolving such oppositional attitudes is fueled by misrepresentations of the experiences of childhood and refugeeness [15] that fail to recognize refugee children as active participants in the sociocultural environment. The consequences of such misrepresentations include hesitancy to meet protection obligations and ineffectiveness in integrating, organizing and delivering equitable public services and health care across and within jurisdictions [1,3]. A relational and developmental account of their interactions provides a foundation for a rights-based approach that protects their right to thrive as they develop
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