 Welcome everybody to A World on the Move, our podcast dealing with the stories of refugees and migrants and in particular focusing on the upcoming summit in New York on the 19th of September. Children have been somewhat left out of the story for the summit and Sarah will kind of help us bring some focus onto this really overlooked issue I think. In fact it's very striking that you would use this week to highlight children's issues because it was really at this point in time last year when it became a children's crisis. Why? Because many children were on the move one in three by the end of last year and also because we saw this terrible stark image that will be forever will forever define what this crisis has meant to children and that was when the three-year-old baby Alain known as Baby Alain, Syrian toddler, died on the beach in Ismir. Our really key ask is that children should be front and center because whether a child is a refugee or a migrant that child doesn't know what a child knows is that a child is a child and we know that what you need when you're a child is your basic needs need to be met and you need protection now with those who are stranded their long-term needs like education health protection are more than ever in the spotlight and need to be addressed. Good morning in Liberia and at the age of four the war broke out and we had to we had to move to Surileo. We moved about seven times we were forced to migrate about seven times five of which we lost everything and that meant that I missed several several years of of school although there was no no education facilities my mom was very keen that I learned how to read and write and she she made sure that we if we're escaping from Liberia to go to Surileo she had my books when we're moving from Surileo to go to Guinea she had my books internally displaced she had my books with me and so I I managed to to keep some level of of education that my my parents had a sense that the children who were affected by the conflict who were suffering during the conflict would be those who would rebuild the nation in years to come so as part of the solution as part of long-term solution we had to start investing in young people then we can't wait until after the conflict before we start saying okay well how can we train people to to rebuild the nation in 1999 when there was a big attack and we had over 10,000 people displaced in the camp near near us my father walking through the refugee camp just decided we're going to start a school and in about five days we set up a school and had about a thousand young people there I was at age 13 and I was teaching a class of 60 young people in year two young people who had not been in education for about five six years now hold a degree in business management and IT and are really on the very forefront of rebuilding Surileo I think the the issue is also not just about the education as a learning opportunity and investment for life but also as a protection tool protection that education and a school and the routine of schooling offers a child is phenomenal because it you know the kind of word of mouth that cushion that that social foundation that you give a child in order you know where they they have peers they have teachers they have others they can create new friendships despite the fact that this their friends as you say have been left behind and that's so important for young people is to get a sense of being at home uh and school does that I was born in Iran and we left when I was about five years old we were forced to flee because we were um non-Muslims for me I didn't have a clear perception on what was going on a child as a child I mean you don't really understand the distance that you're traveling and the implications of what is happening you know compared to what's happening now with the Syrian crisis and looking at all these children I wonder how much are they really grasping at this age into what's really happening and um what is you know why are they being forced to flee and why are they um forced to seek protection elsewhere in Europe what is stark is you know there are now 580 thousand children who've claimed asylum in Europe those are the latest statistics from today at the end of August uh and that's over an 18 month period the kids who are coming in from from West Africa particularly we did a child alert on the Mediterranean in June showing again that the great majority are unaccompanied and the majority of those are using smugglers and sometimes traffickers now they have to pay it's kind of a pay-as-you-go system and they have to pay in kind so they pay with their labor sadly often they pay as prostitutes before during and after and they face exploitation abuse at every step of the way and once they reach their destination it's not the end of their journey it's just the beginning of another journey so you know your story about crossing the border is can you imagine you know those who are crossing the Sahara crossing the Mediterranean and the fear and and how you are much more vulnerable to be exploited by those smugglers who can hand you over to traffickers or indeed become traffickers if they benefit from the trade and human beings um as we all know like chocolate industry is a very is a booming industry especially in the west and I like chocolate I also eat chocolate to be honest but uh I need to I need to eat chocolate knowing that a child somewhere else is going to school uh having a decent life uh as I have my own decent life at the confines of my comfortable rooms most farmers in those two countries uh some of them are migrants and most of these people cannot own lands so the only thing they can do is to work on the farms of other farmers and then they get a small pay um I spoke to one uh employer one farmer who employed uh a farmer on his farm and I asked him how much he pays the farmer that works on his farm this was about a 10 acres land and the farmer that works there would have family it's a mother of three children get paid an equivalent of 45 Canadian dollars a year that's 45 Canadian dollars a year in each and every case from Ghana all the way to to Kodi bar there is extreme poverty that is forcing uh some of these parents to use their own kids as as the main source of like labor to do the work and it's a very very dangerous work I tried myself uh to to cut the ports of to open the ports of the cocoa beans you use a machete which is like sharp on both end and one can easily like slash it into the skin so there are cases of injury on the work and of course as we know those cases it's not like here whereby if you have like injury on the work then there is a law to to go to so that you can get compensated for for the injury so this is the case of some of some migrants that is not known in the world in the mainstream so I wanted to ask you as you go forward to the summit and maybe talk to the world leaders uh how some of these nuances that are not in the mainstream can be handled the past 18 months in those who've come into Europe not only James as you're saying the children who've come in from West Africa who've been exploited for their labor often because of lack of alternatives or because their parents felt that they needed they had no alternative either they needed to use use in brackets uh use inverted commas I should say their children as a source of labor but what is so so unusual about this particular last 18 months of those who've been on the move it's what I like to call the first digital humanitarian crisis and what's different is that each one of these children on the move especially those who've come from Syria and Afghanistan they all have a cell phone some of them and a lot of them I wouldn't know if it's if it's most but very very likely have smartphones and your stories reaching out to them through these kinds of platforms to show them a hope show them hope show them the inspiration of your own stories you've all got such vibrant positive stories about being migrants all around the world and that can give them a real sense of inspiration and a beacon to live up towards so share your stories and try to connect with those children who are on the move over the past couple of years oh 10% of air trans have left the country and a lot of these are unaccompanied minors that these kids like you said they're innocent and they're just searching for a life that they don't have to be working under you know the military and they have to go through those measures to just get to europe and those are the ones that make it to europe there are a lot that are it displaced in Ethiopia we have a lot of air trans in the refugee camps here so kids deal with a lot just to look for a better life and that really that's one of my main concerns you're so right and in fact just today I was speaking to our team in italy and large numbers of air atreans have arrived most of them unaccompanied most of them of course without a family and are underage as well as some Somalis and some from the gambia and they've just come in in the past few days and you might have seen that actually record numbers of of children have been rescued at sea every single one of those children they each have a separate story you might even find those who wouldn't necessarily be coming from from a war torn country maybe from from parts of the world even parts of pakistan that are perfectly peaceful but they themselves as children have the right to claim protection everything i've been hearing today has been really fascinating and it's important that you stay in touch with us and that we you stay connected with us and help channel what you've got to say so that you're heard loud and clear by today's world leaders