E- bulletin 35 – 1.1. How can we move forward with the endorsement of the Budapest Declaration? (See endorsing societies below)

At the ISSOP Meeting in Budapest 2017 this Declaration was adopted. The Declaration implies that paediatricians and child health professionals worldwide should promote the rights, health and well-being of refugee children.

Until now the Declaration has been endorsed by 28 organisations across the world, out of which 3 in Japan. However, for Japanese paediatricians and child health care providers, the issue of refugee children is quite remote from their daily life. To make it understandable I have illustrated the challenges of “Children and youth on the move” with those displaced internally within Japan after the Great East Japan Earthquake and related Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in 2011.

Already earlier this year the Declaration was adopted by Japan Society for Social Medicine and Society of Ambulatory and General Pediatrics of Japan, as I have already reported in the ISSOP e-Bulletin No. 33. As I recently reported at the ISSOP 2018 meeting also the Japan Pediatric Society has now endorsed the Budapest Declaration. This society has as many as 22’000 members across Japan. Thus, the endorsement gives this society’s many members an opportunity to become aware of the challenging situation for many children and youth on the move between and within countries.

Solving the issue of refugee children is urgent and requires both global and country-level action, where I have given my efforts in Japan as an example. Now I wish you good luck with influencing your country’s medical societies to endorse the Budapest Declaration.

Thank you!

Hajime Takeuchi (Paediatrician)
School of Social Welfare
Graduate School of Social Welfare
BUKKYO University, Kyoto, Japan

see the latest list of endorsements