Joint Statement - UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict

5 July 2023 - Group of Friends of Children and Armed Conflict

Madam/Mister President,

I have the honour of delivering this statement on behalf of the Group of Friends of Children and Armed Conflict.^{Footnote 1} We welcome today’s Open Debate convened by the United Kingdom and thank today’s briefers.

We once again encourage the Security Council to regularly include children and youth briefers in its work, and call for the safe and meaningful inclusion and participation of children and youth in all matters of peace and security.

Madam/Mister President,

The Group of Friends welcomes the Secretary-General’s annual report, while expressing our serious concern with the scale and scope of the 27,180 grave violations which affected 18,890 children. The trends presented in the report are disturbing and must be reversed.

We call upon all parties to armed conflict to fully comply with their obligations under international humanitarian, human rights and refugee law, and to act to prevent and end grave violations against children. To this end, we strongly encourage all parties to armed conflict to sign and implement action plans and other concrete, time-bound measures to enhance the protection of children in armed conflict.

We call for full accountability for grave violations through national and international justice mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court. True justice also involves reparations and access to gender- and age-sensitive comprehensive specialized services, including medical, mental health and psychosocial support, and sexual and reproductive health-care services, as well as legal and livelihood support to survivors of grave violations.

We encourage all UN Member States to accede to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, and to consider endorsing and implementing practical child protection instruments, such as the Safe Schools Declaration, the Paris Principles and Commitments, and the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and the Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers.

We call for adequate resourcing for child protection specialists and activities, and urge support to the full implementation of child protection mandates by UN peace operations.

Madam/Mister President,

The Group of Friends expresses its appreciation for the work of the Special Representative to the Secretary-General, UNICEF, and all child protection actors from the UN and civil society.

The CAAC architecture this Council established is increasingly challenged to address the sharp increase both in grave violations against children and the number of situations in which they are occurring.

We are particularly concerned with the report’s finding that government forces are now the main perpetrators of the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals and denial of humanitarian assistance. In this regard, we note new listing decisions this year.

The plight of children in armed conflict remains dire and necessitates the full and effective use of all tools at our disposal to prevent and end grave violations against children.

We reiterate the importance of the independence, impartiality, and credibility of the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) and the listing mechanism as contained in the Secretary-General’s annual reports on Children and Armed Conflict.

We note that Haiti and Niger are designated in the report as situations of concern with immediate effect. We also note the listing decisions in the annexes, as well as the criteria for these decisions. 

We reiterate our call for the information presented in the Secretary-General’s annual reports, as collected and verified by the MRM, to be reflected in the annexes of the report in an accurate and timely manner.

And we recall the importance of the Secretary-General utilizing clear criteria and procedures for listing and de-listing parties to armed conflict deemed responsible for committing grave violations across all situations contained in the report.

Thank you, Madam/Mister President.