The conference was held from 28. – 30.09.2017 in Budapest and summarized by our board member Nadja Tarivedian:

This year’s theme was „Children on the Move“.
Apart from reports by non- and governmental organisations from Greece, Hungary, Sweden, Iceland, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey, Lebanon, Austria, Slovenia, Great Britain, Switzerland, Portugal, Denmark, Japan, Israel, Pakistan, India, Australia and Germany these were the main topics of the conference:

  • Concept of culture, xenophobia and discrimination in paediatrics (and how to deal with it)
  • Child rights based approach – advocacy for refugee children / underage migrants
  • Violence against children, child protection

It was one of the aims of the conference to develop a declaration on health and well-being of children „on the move“ that will be puclished soon.

ISSOP particularly demands equal standard of health care for all children, independent of their “status“, and disapproves of all currently available methods of age determination of children. Alternatives such as psychosocial age determination (Great Britain) were discussed. The European Academy of Paediatrics is developing ea guideline for first contact (in primary care) with migrant children in Europe.

Interesting publications of ISSOP are available on its website zu finden, e.g. the following position statements:

  • Migrant child health (published in Child: care, health and development)
  • Social determinants and child health (currently being reveised)

Furhter intersting links:

Master programme of the University of Pecs on migrant health (in cooperation with the University of Greifswald and others)
Annual conference of Political Child Medicine in Salzburg 10.11.17 with a focus on health care of refugee children
Next Annual conference of ISSOP 2018 in Bonn – including sessions on refugee children.