UN Children's Fund Calls for Social Inclusion of Immigrant Children

The United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF on Wednesday called for social inclusion and integration of immigrant children in affluent countries, news reaching said.

A report released by the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy, revealed that children of immigrant families are at a disadvantage in comparison to native-born children.

Donald Hernandez, sociology professor at the University of Albany, New York, authored the study, named Children in Immigrant Families in Eight Affluent Countries.

Hernandez said that immigrant children "often experience educational and economic challenges and higher poverty rates."

In order to diminish these differences, the report recommends improving access to health care, education and work opportunities.

"Fostering civil integration and social inclusion can benefit not only children and parents in immigrant families," said David Parker, Deputy Director of UNICEF Innocenti Research Center, "but also the countries of settlement that the parents in immigrant families have adopted as their own."

UNICEF, founded in 1946, works in 190 countries and is headquartered in New York.

(Xinhua News Agency October 22, 2009)