NGO PRESS BRIEFING ON CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Several non-governmental organizations (NGOs), at a briefing for correspondents at Headquarters today, urged the United Nations Security Council to take immediate steps to protect children’s security and rights in armed conflicts around the world. 

The representatives of Save the Children, Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict/CARE International, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers/Human Rights Watch, said the lives and futures of millions of children were at stake every day in 35 armed conflicts worldwide.  Although the international community had undertaken many efforts, including the passing of new laws and regulations to prevent and punish the parties that affected children in armed conflict, atrocities against children continued in the field.  Despite all efforts, the vulnerability of children to exploitation and other types of suffering due to armed conflicts continued to increase.

The NGOs’ briefing followed their presentation before the Security Council the previous day.  Mexico, which sponsored today’s briefing, strongly recommended that the international community put more emphasis on its actions and find innovative and creative means for dealing with the current situation.  To reverse the current trends, it was imperative that the international community joined its efforts with those of the NGOs.

Andrew Johnson, the United Nations representative of Save the Children, speaking on behalf of Neil Boothby, Save the Children’s senior advisor on children and armed conflict and professor of public health at Columbia University, said 80 to 90 per cent of those affected by war and conflict were women and children; hence the need for NGOs, along with efforts of missions and the United Nations to have a direct and targeted approach to children, as they were the most affected segment of the population.  From the humanitarian point of view, access was vital.  Although statistics spokes of millions of children dying as a result of armed conflict, those children did not always die as result of being shot or being in armed conflict, but by preventable diseases.

It was vital to gain access to those children in vulnerable situations which increased death and their vulnerability, he said.  “So, we called upon the Security Council to ensure that humanitarian actors like the United Nations and NGOs can gain access”, he said.  One of the most important areas they wanted to bring to the attention of the Security Council was the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) process.  After the United Nations and the international community had gone forward with demobilization, often children were forgotten.

More time needed to be given for the demobilization and disarmament process to ensure that children were not sent back into communities where they would be re-armed or re-integrated into armed forces, he added.

Kathleen Hunt, a member of the steering committee of Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict, said there was a need, as pointed out by the Secretary-General, for a more systematic monitoring, data collection and follow-up overseen by the Security Council.  Highlighting the recommendations made to the Security Council, she said a lot had been done in the last 10 years on behalf of children and armed conflict, beginning with the 1986 (Graca) Machel Report which, she said, “blew the whole story wide open” by providing the world with the most detailed and appalling picture of what was going on with children in conflict situations.  The fact that the world now knew the problem was a great step forward, and all the nuances involved were also better understood as a result.

Jo Becker, the Advocacy Director for the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, speaking on behalf of the Coalition to Stop the use of Child Soldiers, said that while NGOs considered the list of governments and armed groups that recruited child soldiers that had been compiled by the Secretary-General, NGOs were concerned that the scope of the list was too narrow.  It was a well-known fact that the problem was much bigger than the five countries identified by the Secretary-General’s list.  It was recommended that the list be updated and expanded, and that effective follow-up action be taken, including the imposition of “targeted measures” such as arms embargoes, suspension of cooperation and other sanctions.

On behalf of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, Sarah Spencer addressed the issue of HIV/AIDS among adolescents and called on the Security Council to recognize that threat as a peace and security issue.

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