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Family tracing and reunification (FTR)
During population displacement, such as fleeing a disaster or a war and being trucked to a new camp for Refugee or Internally Displaced People, children can easily become separated from their families. Young and differently-abled children are particularly at risk, as they may be unable to move as quickly as others.
Separated children are at risk of being recruited into armed forces or armed groups, abducted, trafficked, or sexually abused or exploited. Sometimes they are put into institutional care or made available for international adoption, instead of being reunified with their families and extended families.
Save the Children works to prevent separation in the first place, and work immediately when a crisis hits and in its aftermath, to put systems in place and inform people of what to do to ensure children are not separated from their families. When separation does occur, the organization sets up tracking systems for rapid reunification of separated children. The organization works with governments, ICRC, UNICEF, and other NGOs to register children, trace parents, and provide reunification packages for families. In addition, Save the Children supports governments to develop systems for registration and to provide identification cards to vulnerable children, to ensure that they are registered.
It is important to continue this work and to ensure that interagency tools on Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR) are adopted and implemented in emergency situations and that government's capacity to register children is strengthened.
Photo: Save the Children
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Protection Beyond Reach: State of play of refugee and migrant children's rights in Europe
Five years ago, on 2 September 2015, three-year-old Alan Kurdi lost his life just off the Turkish coast. Images of his dead body have become a tragic symbol of the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, when over 1 million refugees and migrants, a third of whom were
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Family Tracing for Children Without Adequate Documentation
In this video, Dy Noeut and Kim Malin of New Smile Organisation (NSO) discuss their experience of conducting family tracing as a part of reintegration efforts in the context of an unregistered orphanage where children’s files contained missing and inaccur
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Family Tracing Post Child Abandonment at Hospital
In this two-part video, Sorn Sokchea discusses the medical social work program run by Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia, that aims to prevent and respond to child abandonment with the goal of strengthening families to provide adequate care for thei
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Preventing and Responding to Child Abandonment at Hospitals
In this two-part video, Sorn Sokchea discusses the medical social work program run by Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia, that aims to prevent and respond to child abandonment with the goal of strengthening families to provide adequate care for thei
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Measuring Separation in Emergencies: Community-based monitoring in rural Adwa, Tigray, Ethiopia
The Measuring Separation in Emergencies (MSiE) project is an interagency initiative under the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, funded by the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and coordinated by Save the Children in pa
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Measuring Separation in Emergencies: Haiti following Hurricane Matthew
The Measuring Separation in Emergencies (MSiE) project is an interagency initiative funded by the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA) and is coordinated by Save the Children in partnership with Columbia University. The overall aim of the MS
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A Practice Handbook: For family tracing and reunification in emergencies
Since the onset of the current phase of the South Sudan conflict in December 2013, nearly 3 million people have been displaced. Two million people have fled to neighbouring countries, and another 1.9 million others remain internally displaced. The ongoing
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Realising the Right to Family Reunification of Refugees in Europe
This issue paper examines family reunification for refugees as a pressing human rights issue. Without it, refugees are denied their right to respect for family life, have vastly diminished integration prospects and endure great additional unnecessary suff
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Guidelines on Children's Reintegration
Currently, there are millions of children globally who are currently separated from their families or communities of origin. A safe, secure family environment is widely recognized as the optimal environment for the growth of children and family reintegrat
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In Search of a Better Future: Experiences of unaccompanied migrant children in Limpopo & Mpumalanga in South Africa
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provide for the protection of children who are deprived of family or parental care and make it clear that such children should have acc
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Children's Rights in Return Policy and Practice in Europe: A discussion paper on the return of unaccompanied and separated children to institutional reception or family
Every year thousands of unaccompanied or separated children enter the EU, creating challenges for European States to ensure that the children are given appropriate care and protection and have their rights respected in line with all international obligati
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Consultation with Children in East Africa for the World Humanitarian Summit: Messages from children affected by emergencies
In the lead up to the first ever World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), May 2016, Save the Children and UNICEF carried out a consultation that sought the views of around 500 children, primarily aged between 7 and 14 years. The children, affected by conflict and