Bogotá, a national benchmark for attention to the migrant population

• The Regional Secretariat for Social Integration participated on October 19, 20 and 21 in the Colombia Teach Colombia (Col-Col) exchange.
• That’s one thing a way of international cooperation that allows the exchange of knowledge, practices and training for their subsequent adaptation in different territorial contexts.
• Bogotá is a benchmark for the “For Children” strategy, which consists in developing actions to tackle begging and child labour.

Bogota, DC, October 19, 2022. The Regional Secretariat for Social Integration participates in the event Colombia Teach Colombia (Col-Col), a form of international cooperation that allows the exchange of knowledge, practices and training for subsequent adaptation in different territorial contexts.

The entity acts as a host and shows the country the strategy for children, an experience that has been recognized as good practice at the international level, receiving the Unicef ​​​​Inspire award within the strategy for child-friendly territories.

The Secretary of Social Integration, Margarita Baraquer, welcomed the other participating territories and emphasized: “They are visiting us from different cities in the country. We are in an exercise that from Bogotá we are sharing the experience we have with migrant girls, an internal cooperation exercise with the support of Unicef ​​​​and we are working to tell them what we are doing with migrant children in Bogotá. Generally what happens to migrant children is that they are forced to accompany their parents to work; In this sense, the call we are making is from the Secretariat to have all the necessary quotas in the gardens to be served”.

The meeting started on October 19 and will continue until October 21. It is attended by representatives of the municipalities of Araucita, Cumbal, Maicao, Soledad and Villa del Rosario, who will have an approach to the strategy “For the children” for its subsequent adaptation in each of the invited territories.

Por la Niñez is becoming a benchmark at national level as it develops actions to raise awareness, active search and a territorial approach to families with children and adolescents identified as being at risk of rights violations, in the context of their own begging and accompanying of Labour, reaching out to them, referring them and connecting them to regional offices according to their needs.

On the first day, the entity presented its good practice to the invited territories, the Presidential Agency for International Cooperation (APC), the Colombian Institute for the Welfare of the Family (ICBF) and Unicef, creating a space for dialogue and a first approach to action plans.

The second day will be focused on a tour led by the social integration center Abrazar, the Amar Chapinero center and the social development center for migrants. While the last day will be key as it will be focused on building work plans based on what has been learned in the previous days.

The numbers left by the strategy

During the 2021 term, 1,253 children and adolescents were identified, of which 502 were of migrant origin and 751 were Colombian.

Of the total number of children and adolescents identified, 755 had effective links with the various district offices, 97 had full rights, 155 were in transit with their families and 250 had lost contact.

During the 2022 mandate, 982 children and adolescents were identified, of which 125 were identified in territorial mobilizations, 567 were identified in an active round-the-clock search, 179 received citizen complaints and 111 in interdepartmental operations.

43% of the girls, boys and adolescents identified by the strategy were found in the context of their own begging, 51.9% in work support, 3.7% in parental prison and 1% required activation of the route due to an alleged violation of rights . Of these, 464 were identified by Mobile Strategy and 518 by the traveling Abrazar.