Tue. Mar 19th, 2024

A “staggering” average of 71 verified grave violations a day, are committed against children by parties to conflict in more than 30 settings across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America.

This is one of the key findings of a new report entitled, 25 years of children and armed conflict: Taking action to protect children in war, launched by the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, on Tuesday.

UNICEF’s report lays out in the starkest possible terms the world’s failure to protect its children from grave violations during times of armed conflict. https://t.co/WAAqxbYjFy— Catherine Russell (@unicefchief) June 28, 2022

Speaking at a news briefing at the UN in Geneva, Tasha Gill, UNICEF’s Senior Advisor on Child Protection in Emergencies, said that between 2005 and 2020, the Organization had verified over 250,000 grave violations in total, against children in the 30 locations.

This is a staggering average of 71 grave violations against children daily”, she told reporters.

The report analyses 16 years of data on grave rights violations committed against children in conflict situations, to show the impact of armed conflict on children across the world.

Five hotspots

Ms. Gill emphasized that in the time frame examined, “82 per cent of all verified child casualties occurred in only five locations“: Afghanistan, Israel and the State of Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia.

The report examines how engagement with parties to conflict – state and non-State actors alike – enables ending and preventing child rights’ violations.

According to Ms. Gill, “our analysis shows that despite decades of advocacy with parties to conflict and those who influence them – as well as enhanced monitoring, reporting and documenting grave rights violations – children continue to bear the brunt of war.

‘Unspeakable horrors’

“Every day, girls and boys living in areas under conflict experience and endure unspeakable horrors that no one should experience”.

During the period from 2005 to 2020, UNICEF found that more than 104,000 children were verified as killed or maimed, more than 93,000 children verified as recruited and used by parties to conflict and at least 25,700 were verified as abducted by parties to conflict.

“To give just some sense of the magnitude of the problem: in one decade alone – from 2010 to 2020, there was an increase of 185% of verified grave child rights violations committed against children in conflict situations,” said UNICEF’s Senior Advisor on Child Protection in Emergencies.