UN Annual Report On Children and Armed Conflict
Source : un.org
GS II : Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate
Approach “UN Annual Report On Children and Armed Conflict” : Mains
- About the Report
- Efforts by UN
- Need f the Hour
Why in News ?
Recently UN published Annual Report of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) which shows violations against children remained alarmingly high at nearly 26,500.
Key Facts
- The pandemic increased their vulnerability to abduction, recruitment and sexual violence, as well as attacks on schools and hospitals.
Image by Annette Jones from Pixabay - More than 8,400 youngsters were killed or maimed in ongoing wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia.
- Nearly 7,000 more were recruited and used in fighting, mainly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Syria and Myanmar.
- Exponential growth in abductions, which rose by a staggering 90 per cent last year.
- Rape and other forms of sexual violence also shot up by 70 per cent.
- Attacks on schools and hospitals
- Remained excessively high
- Included serious attacks perpetrated against girls education and against health facilities and personnel.
- Increase in the military use of schools as the temporary closure of schools during the pandemic made them easy targets for military occupation and use.
- Attack over Girls
- Girls made up a quarter of all child victims of grave violations.
- They also were mostly affected by rape and other forms of sexual violence
- It comprising 98 per cent of victims ollowed by killing and wound or injure.
Efforts by UN
- Progress in dialogues with warring parties in Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Nigeria, the Philippines, South Sudan and Syria.
- Commitments or other engagement were reached last year to better protect children, including two new action plans signed in Myanmar and South Sudan.
- Armed groups and forces freed more than 12,643 children from their ranks following UN engagement.
- Many boys and girls were spared from recruitment due to age screening processes in situations where the UN has action plans with governments
- Challenges
- Progress has taken place as child protection capacities on the ground are both overstretched and underfunded.
- Covid-19 pandemic has complicated UN’s efforts to reach out to children in situations of armed conflict.
Need of the Hour
Conflict doesn’t differentiate based on gender.
- Need to secure resources for child protection at a time of extreme suffering for children.
- Give children an alternative to violence and abuse as world recovering from the period of Pandemic also need to respect for child rights and democracy.
- Stick to UN has action plans with governments to stop child recruitment and use.
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