MMC Snapshot - Children and youth in mixed migration

Many children are migrating in the hope of accessing new opportunities, improving their lives, or trying to find safety, with or without their parents or caregivers. According to UN DESA, one in every seven migrants was aged 19 or under in 2020, with some contexts recording higher proportions of children on the move, for example on certain migration routes, or among refugee populations where children account for 41% of those displaced. Youth (between the ages of 15 and 24) accounted for 11% of migrants worldwide in 2020.

This is the fourth in a series of state-of-play knowledge papers that address topical mixed migration issues and present key messages drawn from MMC’s research, expert analysis, and 4Mi data.