Unlocking Childhood: Current immigration detention practices and alternatives for child asylum seekers and refugees in Asia and the Pacific

This report is the collaboration of Save the Children and the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network with funding support from the Oak Foundation.

This report examines current policy framework and practices in five countries, namely Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and the Republic of Nauru. The research is the result of extensive desk-based research, stakeholder consultations in South East Asia and interviews with child asylum seekers and refugees. The research documents current practices in detention of child asylum seekers and refugees, the conditions of detention and the impact of detention on children. It also explores available alternatives to detention in these countries and emerging initiatives that may offer new, improved or expanded alternatives to detention in the future. It offers a number of principles and recommendations which aim to end the practice of detaining children for immigration purposes and to ensure that alternatives to detention are safe and appropriate for children.

The report aims to contribute to ending the practice of child immigration detention in line with the commitment of States in the New York Declaration on Refugees and Migrants (2016).