315,000 serious crimes against children involved in conflict in 18 years: UNICEF
The UN-recorded figures were reported by the agency as States, donors and the humanitarian community met in Norway, for the Oslo Conference on the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict.
The 315,000 incidents were recorded in more than 30 conflict locations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.
They also more than 120,000 children were killed or maimed; at least 105,000 children were recruited or used by armed forces or armed groups; over 32,500 abducted children; and more than 16,000 children refers to sexual violence.
The UN has also confirmed more than that 16,000 attacks on schools and hospitalsand more than 22,000 cases where humanitarian access for children is denied.
The true cost could be much higher, UNICEF stressed. In addition, millions of children have been driven from their homes and communities, lost friends or family, or separated from parents or guardians.
‘War on children’
“Any war is ultimately a war on children” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“Exposure to conflict has catastrophic, life-changing effects for children. While we know what must be done to protect children from war, the world is not doing enough. Every year, the United Nations documents the most tragic, tragic and all-too-predictable ways in which children’s lives have been torn apart.”
The director of UNICEF said that it is necessary for everyone in the world community to make sure that children “do not pay for the wars of adults, and to take bold, concrete action that is needed to protect some of the children of you are the most vulnerable in the world.”
The Fund has supported the care and protection of millions of children affected by conflict situations, including through the provision of mental health and psychosocial support, child protection case management, family tracing and reunification, and services for child survivors of abuse. gender based role.
Rehabilitating soldiers
Last year, UNICEF reached 12,500 ex-soldiers with joint or other security support, and more than nine million children with information designed to help them avoid the remnants of war as well as land uprisings. .
The agency says the scale of the security risks exceeds the funding available yet.
New analysis by Human resource forecasting, commissioned by UNICEF, Save the Children, Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action and the Global Child Protection Area of Responsibility, revealed that by 2024, the child protection sector will need $1.05 billion, increasing to US$1.37 billion by 2026, to address the protection needs of children in armed conflict.
If the current pace of humanitarian funding continues, the unexpected shortfall will stand at US$835 million in 2024, growing to US$941 million by 2026.
This gap can leave vulnerable children exposed to the immediate and long-term effects of war, child labor, trafficking, and violence, UNICEF warns.
A young girl stands in the ruins of her destroyed school in Horenka, in the Kyiv region of Ukraine.
Call for new contracts in Oslo
At the Oslo conference, the agency is calling on governments to make bold new commitments, including:
- To support and implement international laws and regulations already exists to protect children in war – including to protect schools, hospitals and other security facilities such as water and sanitation facilities from attack, to stop the recruitment and use of children by armed groups and forces, to stop the use of explosive weapons in the population. the areas.
- Bring the culprits to account when children’s rights are violated.
- Step up with the necessary resources fund the protection of children fight at the scale and speed required, in line with growing need. This must include investment in humanitarian response and in national child protection workers.
“We must provide a child protection solution equal to the challenges we face,” Ms. Russell said. “We need to do everything we can to reach all the children in need, especially the vulnerable.”
