What is the primary focus of the ICCYMS 2026?

The conference focuses on interdisciplinary studies related to children, youth, and migration, addressing challenges and opportunities for these populations.

International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026

Name: International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026
Start: 2026-10-23T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-10-23T00:00:00Z
Location: Kigali

Oct 23, 2026Kigali, RwandaIn-person

Registration open

The International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026, held in Kigali, RWA, brings together researchers and practitioners to address the complex issues surrounding child and youth migration. This event serves as a critical platform for interdisciplinary dialogue, focusing on the multifaceted challenges and opportunities presented by global migration patterns affecting younger populations. Participants will engage with contemporary research, policy implications, and practical interventions designed to support and protect children and youth on the move.

Committees & topics

Topics
Migration Policies and Their Impact on Youth · Mental Health Challenges Among Refugee Youth · Cross-Cultural Integration and Identity Formation · Family Separation and Its Effects on Youth Development · Social Inclusion Strategies for Migrant Youth · Legal Status and Its Implications for Children and Youth · Educational Access and Equity for Migrant Youth · Community Support Networks for Displaced Youth

Why it matters

The topic of children, youth, and migration is of paramount importance in the current global landscape. Millions of young individuals are impacted by displacement, whether due to conflict, economic hardship, or environmental factors. Understanding their unique vulnerabilities, resilience, and potential contributions is crucial for developing effective humanitarian responses and sustainable integration strategies. This conference provides a vital forum for sharing knowledge and fostering collaboration among experts dedicated to improving the lives of these populations.

The discussions at ICCYMS 2026 are particularly relevant given the evolving nature of migration. As global events continue to shape demographic shifts, the need for robust research and evidence-based policies becomes increasingly urgent. The conference aims to bridge the gap between academic inquiry and practical application, ensuring that insights gained translate into tangible benefits for migrant children and youth worldwide. By convening diverse perspectives, the event seeks to advance a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of this critical social phenomenon.

How to prepare

To effectively engage with the themes of the ICCYMS 2026, delegates should undertake a thorough review of current literature on child and youth migration. This includes examining the socio-economic, psychological, and legal dimensions of displacement as they pertain to younger age groups. Familiarity with international conventions and frameworks related to child protection and refugee rights will also be beneficial.

Consider preparing a country-specific analysis focusing on RWA, the host nation, and its experiences with migration, particularly concerning children and youth. Understanding local contexts and regional dynamics will enrich discussions and provide valuable insights into the practical challenges and innovative solutions being implemented. Additionally, exploring various theoretical approaches to migration studies, such as those discussed in the lesson on "Dynamic Analysis," will provide a strong analytical foundation for participation.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Rwanda

As the host nation, RWA has a vested interest in showcasing its approaches to managing migration, particularly concerning vulnerable populations, and engaging in international dialogue.

Role in topic

RWA has experience as both a source and host country for displaced populations, offering a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities associated with child and youth migration within an African context. Its policies and initiatives regarding refugee integration and child protection will be of particular interest.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Migration Policies and Their Impact on Youth

Migration governance has evolved unevenly across regions, with the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration providing the first comprehensive UN framework but stopping short of binding obligations. Children and youth—who comprise roughly 14% of the world's international migrants according to UNICEF and IOM data—are disproportionately affected by policy choices made primarily with adults in mind, including detention practices, age-assessment procedures, family reunification rules, and pathways to regularization. Restrictive turns in the United States, the United Kingdom, and several EU member states since 2015 have coincided with expanded externalization agreements (such as the EU-Türkiye Statement and the now-defunct UK-Rwanda scheme) that have measurable downstream effects on unaccompanied minors and young asylum seekers. The core dispute concerns how to reconcile state sovereignty over borders with binding child-rights obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which 196 states have ratified. Civil society and UN agencies argue that the best-interests-of-the-child principle should override standard migration enforcement; destination states counter that broad child-specific protections create pull factors. Today, debates focus on alternatives to child detention, safe and legal pathways for youth, and how the 2024 UN Pact for the Future commitments on youth and migration will be operationalized.

Key players

Mental Health Challenges Among Refugee Youth

Decades of clinical research, consolidated in WHO and UNHCR reviews, show that refugee children and adolescents experience post-traumatic stress, depression, and anxiety at rates several times higher than non-displaced peers. The protracted Syrian, Afghan, Rohingya, Ukrainian, and Sudanese displacement crises have produced cohorts of young people exposed to violence, family loss, and prolonged uncertainty in camps or urban precarity. The 2019 Inter-Agency Standing Committee guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) in emergencies established a tiered model, but funding and trained personnel remain scarce: UNHCR estimates that less than 2% of humanitarian health budgets go to mental health. The core issues are access, cultural appropriateness, and continuity. Many host-country health systems lack child psychiatrists or trauma-informed services in refugees' languages, and stigma deters help-seeking. The COVID-19 pandemic worsened indicators across the board, and the 2022 WHO World Mental Health Report singled out displaced youth as a priority population. Current debates address school-based MHPSS, integration of refugee mental health into national insurance schemes, and how donor states should sustain support as crises become protracted.

Key players

Cross-Cultural Integration and Identity Formation

Migrant and refugee youth navigate identity formation under pressures that monocultural peers do not face: heritage language maintenance, religious practice, peer acceptance, and often racialized treatment in host societies. Scholarship since John Berry's acculturation framework has shown that youth who maintain ties to both heritage and host cultures—"integration" rather than assimilation or separation—tend to fare better on psychosocial outcomes. Policy approaches vary widely, from France's strict laïcité and assimilationist model to Canada's official multiculturalism (codified in the 1988 Multiculturalism Act) and Germany's evolving "Leitkultur" debates. The central tensions are whether host states should promote a single civic identity or actively support cultural pluralism, and how schools, media, and youth services shape these outcomes. Recent flashpoints include school dress-code disputes in France and Belgium, citizenship-test reforms in the Netherlands and Denmark, and rising youth political mobilization among second-generation diaspora communities. The post-2015 surge in arrivals to Europe and ongoing displacement from Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the Sahel have made cross-cultural integration of children a defining domestic-policy question across host states.

Key players

Family Separation and Its Effects on Youth Development

Family separation in migration contexts arises from several pathways: deliberate enforcement policies (such as the 2018 US "zero tolerance" policy that separated thousands of children from parents at the southwestern border), restrictive family-reunification rules in Europe, the deaths or disappearance of parents during dangerous journeys, and protracted asylum backlogs that keep families divided for years. Developmental research, including longitudinal studies cited by the American Academy of Pediatrics and UNICEF, links prolonged separation in childhood to elevated risks of attachment disorders, cognitive delays, and chronic mental health problems. The legal architecture is fragmented. Article 10 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child obligates states to handle family-reunification applications in a "positive, humane and expeditious manner," but implementation varies dramatically: Sweden and Denmark have tightened criteria, while Germany has wavered between expansion and restriction. The United States is still working through reunifications from 2017–2018, with hundreds of children reportedly never matched back to parents. Current debate concerns DNA testing protocols, the rights of unaccompanied minors to sponsor relatives, and accountability for past separation policies.

Key players

Legal Status and Its Implications for Children and Youth

A child's legal status—citizen, regularized resident, asylum seeker, temporary protection holder, or undocumented—shapes access to education, healthcare, work, and protection from removal. An estimated tens of millions of children worldwide live without secure status, including roughly one million undocumented children in the EU and several million in the United States, including DACA recipients and their younger siblings who never qualified. Statelessness affects a further 4.4 million people globally per UNHCR estimates, with children of Rohingya, Syrian Kurdish, and other origins particularly affected. The legal terrain is contested. The Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees every child the right to a nationality (Article 7), and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness obliges signatories to grant nationality to children born stateless on their territory—yet enforcement is weak. "Aging out" of child-specific protections at 18 creates abrupt cliffs in many systems. Current debates focus on regularization pathways for long-term undocumented youth, automatic birthright protections, and the rights of children of foreign fighters or detainees in conflict zones such as northeast Syria.

Key players

Educational Access and Equity for Migrant Youth

Article 28 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child guarantees the right to education to every child without discrimination, but practical access for migrant and refugee youth is uneven. UNHCR's most recent education reports show that only around 65% of refugee children are enrolled in primary school and roughly 42% in secondary, with tertiary enrollment in single digits. Even in high-income destination states, migrant-background students underperform native-born peers in PISA assessments after controlling for socioeconomic status, particularly in tracked systems like Germany's and Austria's. Key obstacles include language of instruction, credential recognition, school segregation, fees levied on undocumented students, and the placement of newly arrived adolescents in age-inappropriate grades. The Global Refugee Forum pledges of 2019 and 2023 emphasized inclusion of refugee children in national education systems rather than parallel structures, a shift led by Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Current debates concern digital learning for displaced youth, certification of interrupted education, and how host states finance the marginal costs of educating large arriving cohorts.

Key players

Community Support Networks for Displaced Youth

Beyond formal state services, displaced youth rely heavily on community structures—diaspora associations, faith-based organizations, peer-led collectives, host-family arrangements, and municipal volunteer networks. Programs such as Canada's Private Sponsorship of Refugees, in operation since 1979, and Germany's federal sponsorship pilots have demonstrated that community-anchored reception yields better integration outcomes than purely state-managed approaches. The Global Compact on Refugees explicitly calls for whole-of-society responses, recognizing the role of local actors. Challenges include uneven capacity across host communities, dependency on volunteer labor, safeguarding concerns when minors are placed with private hosts, and the precarity of NGO funding cycles. The Ukrainian displacement of 2022 onward produced an unprecedented mobilization of host families across Europe—particularly in Poland, where private households absorbed millions—offering both a model and cautionary lessons about sustainability. Current debates focus on how to formalize, fund, and safeguard community-based support without undermining its grassroots character, and on building youth-led peer support within displaced communities themselves.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Mifepristone Ruling Sparks 2026 Political Tug

Congress Debates Trump's Mental Fitness

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Pakistan-Linked Terror Network in Karnataka

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Gender Dynamics Across Cultures

Engagement Strategies

Mapping Relationships

Hidden Stakeholders

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Cross-Cultural Communication

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Rwanda October 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026

Oct 23, 2026Kigali, RwandaIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
Migration Policies and Their Impact on Youth · Mental Health Challenges Among Refugee Youth · Cross-Cultural Integration and Identity Formation · Family Separation and Its Effects on Youth Development · Social Inclusion Strategies for Migrant Youth · Legal Status and Its Implications for Children and Youth · Educational Access and Equity for Migrant Youth · Community Support Networks for Displaced Youth

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Rwanda

As the host nation, RWA has a vested interest in showcasing its approaches to managing migration, particularly concerning vulnerable populations, and engaging in international dialogue.

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

Migration Policies and Their Impact on Youth

Key players

Mental Health Challenges Among Refugee Youth

Key players

Cross-Cultural Integration and Identity Formation

Key players

Family Separation and Its Effects on Youth Development

Key players

Legal Status and Its Implications for Children and Youth

Key players

Educational Access and Equity for Migrant Youth

Key players

Community Support Networks for Displaced Youth

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for International Conference on Children, Youth, and Migration Studies (ICCYMS) 2026.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Mifepristone Ruling Sparks 2026 Political Tug

Congress Debates Trump's Mental Fitness

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Pakistan-Linked Terror Network in Karnataka

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Gender Dynamics Across Cultures

Engagement Strategies

Mapping Relationships

Hidden Stakeholders

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Cross-Cultural Communication

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Rwanda October 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

National Security Symposium 2026

International Conference on Peace, Security, Global Governance, and Gender Studies (ICPSGGGS)

5th TELLS Conference on Future Education 2026

International Conference on Political History and Institutional Development (ICPHIDT)

International Conference on Inclusive Insurance 2026

ASEC Twenty 2026

Frequently asked questions