For the first time a meeting of the ombudsmen of the Adriatic and Ionian region was held in Ancona (25 October 2017), back to back with the first EUSAIR Governing Board of the Italian Chairmanship, with the intention to create a stable network of cooperation with a focus on unaccompanied minors.

The growing number of unaccompanied children coming to Europe with the continue migration and refugee flow has made necessary to activate a cooperation among national institutions in charge of protecting children’s rights in the Adriatic and Ionian area.

This has been considered a “concrete way” to respond to the call of AII Ministers in Dubrovnik and Ioannina to use the EUSAIR potential to try alleviate the migration and refugee crisis severely hitting some countries of the Adriatic and Ionian Region.

A draft Declaration of Intent was presented and will be soon adopted with the aim of strengthening the cooperation among ombudsmen for children of the Adriatic and Ionian Countries in order to:

  • - Build the new platform for cooperation;
  • - promote children’s rights culture in the region;
  • - Share best practices;
  • - Implement joint projects;
  • - Make comparative analysis of Adriatic and Ionian systems for the protections of non accompanied children.