UN expert apologises for saying wrong figure of children in US migration detention

A United Nations expert has apologised for misspeaking at a news conference in Geneva this week, correcting his claim that more than 1,00,000 children were being detained in migration-related cases in the United Nations. Various media outlets were forced to withdraw their stories after it became clear that the expert had mistakenly presented the four-year-old figures believing it to be the current total number of migrant children in US detention. The retractions sparked outrage on social media with charges from supporters of US President Donald Trump that the stories had been intentionally used to damage the current administration's migration policies.

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US has highest number of children in detention

The expert, Manfred Nowak, who led the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty said on Monday that the US has among the highest number of children in migration-related detention. He said that US is one of the countries with the highest numbers of unaccompanied children or minors. He added that the US has more than 1,00,000 children in migration-related detention. An international media agency concerned by such high figures asked the expert to confirm it. Nowak confirmed a lot of times that his figure is correct and told the agency that the total number currently detained is 1,03,000.

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UN Human Rights office releases statement

Nowak further added that his assessment was based on the latest available official data and is very reliable. The UN human rights office released a statement the next day and said that Nowak's figures to some extent were wrong. The statement revealed that the expert was actually referring to the data compiled by the UN refugee agency for 2015 during the Obama administration.
The statement also said that the figure was a cumulative number of migrant children detained in the US at any point during that year and not the actual number of children held at one time.

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