Protection Of Child Refugee's Right To Food In Refugee Camps A Case Study At Nakiv Aale Refugee Camp

Abstract

More than half of the world's refugees are children. In some refugee situations, children constitute as much as 65% of the displaced population. 1 Each day another 5000 children become refugees; one in every 230 person in the world is a child who has been forced to flee his or her own home. 2 Children under 18 years of age constitute 56% of all refugees in Africa. 3 The preamble of the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) recognizes that all minors are entitled to special care and protection and assistance. Article 3 of CRC provides that in all actions concerning children the best interest of the child shall be a primary consideration. Therefore refugee children are entitled to be treated as individuals with peculiar needs such as food and nutrition and not as pmt of a large group of refugees. Refugee children face far greater dangers to their health, safety and well being than the average children under normal circumstances. The sudden and violent onset of emergencies, the disruption of families and community structures as well as acute shortage of resources with which refugees confronted, deeply affects the physical and psychological well being of refugee children.4 It is a dehumanizing situation for infants and young children who are often victims of violence, starvation and malnutrition, which accompany population displacement and refugee out flow.