Today, the global child rights community convenes in Geneva at the occasion of the Human Rights Council’s Annual Day on the Rights of the Child. As in previous years, Hope and Homes for Children seizes this opportunity to shine a light on the need for global care reform and the challenges that millions of children deprived of family care face every day.
The 2026 Human Rights Council Annual Day on the Rights of the Child focuses on Violations of Children’s Human Rights in Armed Conflicts.
To mark this occasion, and just a few days after the 4 year commemoration of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the devastating impact on millions of children and families, Hope and Homes for Children and Lumos publish our joint statement:
Read the Statement: ‘Reunite and protect: Upholding the Rights of Children Deprived of Family Care in Armed Conflict’
The Statement sets out an urgent call for prevention, protection and response for children deprived of family care whose risks are compounded when conflict strikes.
Children deprived of family care already face a protection deficit in peacetime. As our Statement makes plain, armed conflict amplifies that deficit: supervision, services and oversight break down, institutions can be attacked, repurposed or evacuated, and rapid emergency procedures risk separating children further, facilitating trafficking, disappearance and long-term institutionalisation. The Ukraine crisis and other recent conflicts demonstrate how cross-border movements and hurried evacuations can create gaps in registration, tracing and best interests determination processes and how marginalised groups fare worst.
Key messages from the joint Statement include:
- Prioritise prevention of family separation: Strengthened family support, social protection and child protection services must be maintained and reinforced before and during crises.
- Reject institutionalisation as a default emergency response: States should prevent the construction, expansion or funding of institutions in humanitarian crises and, where alternative care is necessary, prioritise safe, family and community-based options.
- Ensure child centred, best–interests determination procedures during emergency responses: Timely registration, child‑level data collection, best‑interests determinations, family tracing and reunification must underpin displacement, evacuation and cross-border movements.
- Strengthen coordination across humanitarian, development and peacebuilding action: Continuity of care and protection for children separated from parental care must be integrated into conflict sensitive planning.
- Protect continuity of safe and inclusive education: Education is a vital protective factor that supports family unity and reduces risks of unnecessary placement in institutions.
- Improve monitoring and accountability: UN reporting mechanisms should include analysis of the impact of armed conflict on children deprived of parental care.
- Commit to child care reform and deinstitutionalisation in peacetime: Sustainable protection depends on resilient systems that operate before crises occur.
Our Statement emphasises that the risks faced by children deprived of family care are multi-fold: the threat of re-institutionalisation persists during return and recovery, when families confront renewed economic and psychosocial pressures. The joint appeal urges Member States to adopt practical, high-impact language in the upcoming HRC Resolution that will result from the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child discussions, protecting children in emergencies, prioritising family-based care, preventing trafficking and ensuring that accelerated crisis responses do not erode essential safeguards.
Join us in marking the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child: this is an opportunity to centre children deprived of family care in debates on protection, peacebuilding and humanitarian response, and to press for reforms that keep families together and end the reliance on institutions.
