Source: Xinhua| 2018-06-09 01:23:07|Editor: yanVideo Player CloseGENEVA, June 8 (Xinhua) -- An increasing number of migrant children are being expelled to Niger as countries across Europe and North Africa seek to curtail irregular migration, the UN children's fund UNICEF said Friday. There are insufficient cross-border mechanisms to protect these children from the many risks they face: trafficking, violence, abuse, exploitation and detention. "We are seeing clampdowns on migration from across Europe into North Africa and now farther south with a big spike in forced returns recently," said Sarah Crowe, UNICEF's spokesperson on migration in Geneva, who recently returned from Niger. She said the answer is robust systems that keep children safe across all borders north, south, east and west, with better investment to poor countries like Niger facing the brunt of this. UNICEF said that with government negotiations on the Global Compacts for Migration and Refugees currently underway in the UN system, UNICEF is calling for solutions to keep children safe.

Source: The North Africa Journal June 08, 2018 17:48 UTC