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In this issue:
On 2 August 2016, the UN Security Council held an Open debate on children and armed conflict following the publication of the Secretary-General’s 15th Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict covering the period from January 1 to December 31, 2015.
According to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General forChildren and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, the impact on children of the collective failure to prevent and end conflict is severe, and violations against children are intensifying. She also stressed that this situation stems directly from an erosion of respect for international humanitarian and human rights law by parties involved in conflict.
The report notes that in 2015, and again in the first half of 2016, Afghanistan recorded the highest number of child deaths and injuries since the UN started systematically documenting civilian casualties in 2009. In Syria and Iraq, violence continued unabated. In South Sudan, following a year during which children were victims of brutal violations, hopes for improvement “all but evaporated” with the resumption of conflict in July. In Yemen, the escalation of conflict continued with alarming levels of childrecruitment, killing and maiming and attacks on schools and hospitals. Read about the decision of the UN Secretary-General (SG) to remove the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen from his annual blacklist of those who violate children’s rights in armed conflict following “undue pressure” from Saudi Arabia and its allies.
The report also highlights that since 2000, more than 115,000 childrenhave been released from the ranks of armed groups and armed forces as a result of action plans and advocacy.
Since the escalation of the conflict in Yemen in March 2015, UNICEF was able to verify that 1,121 children had been killed and another 1,650 were injured. “The actual numbers are likely to be much higher,” said Julien Harneis, UNICEF representative in Yemen. In one incident, four childrenwere reportedly killed and three were injured on 7 August in the Nihm District, east of the Yemeni capital, Sana’a. “UNICEF urges all parties to the conflict in Yemen to adhere to international humanitarian law and keepchildren out of harm’s way,” said Mr. Harneis.
A joint report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has found that the conflict in Yemen has resulted in the displacement of some 3,154,572 people, with 2,205,102 remaining displaced across the country and some 949,470 having attempted to return home.
As wars between rival gangs ‘the Mara 18’ and ‘Mara Salvatrucha’ in Central America intensify, more children are heading to the US without their parents for fear of being forced to join the gangs. According to a study released in 2014 by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 58 percent of Central American child migrants who arrived to the US after October 2011 fled because of violence. According to Human Rights Watch, the violence which has spilled over from Honduras into El Salvador and Guatemala stems from drug trafficking.
Because of the Obama administration’s crackdown on migrants, the journey from Central America is becoming increasingly dangerous. Human rights activists say US efforts to recruit Mexico to help stem the flow ofchildren have put them in greater peril. With the borders now reinforced, migrants are taking riskier routes through southern Mexico. Drug cartels take many of them for ransom, sex trafficking or transporting drugs. Others are murdered for the little cash they carry.
A seven-day ceasefire recently agreed between parties to the conflict in Syria earlier this month came amid allegations of serious human rights violations on both sides, with the regime and its allies accused of deploying cluster munitions and chemical weapons indiscriminately against people in rebel-held areas in recent months. Allegations of sporadic fighting in some areas and reports that government forces are preventing UN aid reaching parts of Aleppo were reported during the ceasefire.
Both chemical and cluster weapons have been documented as affecting children severely, as inhalation of the weaponised gases can have a greater effect on children’s smaller lungs, and because children often mistake submunitions from cluster bombs for toys or cans. The break in the five-year war has also coincided with the publication of the Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, a UN investigation into the human rights violations carried out during the conflict. The report notes the involvement of all groups in the violation of children’s rights during the conflict, documenting “ongoing, multiple and frequently untreated trauma” experienced by the country’schildren and noting the use of airstrikes, forced recruitment of children and siege tactics to cut off even the most basic necessities to rebel-held areas.
A motorcycle bombing which targeted a school in southern Thailand has left three people dead, including a four-year-old girl. A bomb, reportedly hidden in a motorcycle’s fuel tank, was detonated across the street from the school’s entrance, injuring as many as ten other people as parents dropped their children off for the day. Conflict in the country’s south between the Muslim and Buddhist populations has been ongoing since 2004, but attracts little international coverage as attacks tend to be carried out on a relatively small scale. The conflict made headlines last month after bomb attacks in tourist hot spots killed four people and wounded dozens more. The most recent attack was condemned by UNICEF, which stated that schools should be places of education and safety for children.
Santos Lopez Alonzo, a former Guatemalan soldier accused of taking part in the massacre of more than 200 people in 1982 during the country's civil, was deported from the US and taken into the custody of Guatemalan authorities. Lopez served with an elite unit of the Guatemalan army and is among four former soldiers arrested after coming to the US years after the slaughter of villagers, including a number of girls, in Las Dos Erres. More than a dozen more former soldiers have faced arrest warrants in Guatemala on allegations of participating in the massacre.
In December 1982, a group of soldiers was sent to search for missing weapons in Las Dos Erres and rounded up men, women and children, raping girls and beating the villagers with a sledgehammer before throwing their bodies into a well. The massacre took place at the height of the more than three-decade civil war, which had claimed at least 200,000 lives by the time it ended in 1996. The country's US-backed army was responsible for most of the deaths, according to the findings of an independent truth commission set up to investigate the bloodshed.
Three illegal burial grounds, containing some 150 bodies, have been found in Mexico during the search for a missing child. The bodies included that of a baby and two girls, showing signs of violence and trafficking. The story was published in the report "Fosas clandestinas de Tetelcingo Interpretaciones preliminares" by the Autonomous University of the State of Morelos, the main institution participating in the efforts to locate and identify the bodies. According to the report, the bodies found showed signs of violent treatment and, in many cases, an autopsy was never carried out. Despite the fact that the bodies were buried in the area under orders of the District Attorney, there are discrepancies with the official figures and the number of bodies found, also, many of them lacked a corresponding judicial file on the death, and many families continue to search for their relatives. According to experts, the burial grounds present similarities with those dug up by organised crime.
According to UNICEF, 650 children have been recruited into armed groups in South Sudan since January. The agency also warned that renewedconflict could put tens of thousands of children at an even greater risk. It further noted that despite widespread political commitment to end the practice, children continue to be recruited and used by armed groups and forces.
According to estimates, some 16,000 children have been recruited by thearmed groups and armed forces since the crisis first began in the country in December 2013. Last year, UNICEF oversaw the release of 1,775 former child soldiers in what was one of the largest demobilisations ofchildren ever. However, renewed fighting and recruitment in the world's youngest country risks undermining much of this progress.
The agency also highlighted increased numbers of grave violations ofchildren’s rights in the country, noting that gender-based violence, already pervasive, has greatly intensified during the current crisis. “Recent reports point to widespread sexual violence against girls and women. The systematic use of rape, sexual exploitation and abduction as a weapon of war in South Sudan must cease, together with the impunity for all perpetrators,” said Justin Forsyth, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director.
Sudan has released 21 children allegedly associated with armed groups. These children, who were in the custody of government security forces, were captured during fighting between the Government of Sudan and the Justice and Equality Movement in Darfur, in 2015. This is an important milestone towards the implementation of the Action Plan signed between the UN and the Government of Sudan in March 2016. The document aims to contribute to the overall protection of children affected by armed conflictin Sudan and specifically to the protection against and prevention of their recruitment and use, as well as to the release, reintegration and rehabilitation of children.
The children will be housed in a government transit centre where they will receive psychosocial and other support to help their reintegration into their families and communities. The UN will work closely with the government’s National Council for Child Welfare to assist this process.
The Government of Colombia and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia-Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) have began the separation and reintegration of all children under 18 associated with the FARC-EP. The separation and reintegration of children will be carried out in compliance with the agreement signed in Havana, Cuba on 15 May 2016. The Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP further agreed on a protocol detailing steps for the separation and reintegration of children who will leave FARC-EP camps, in accordance with the principle of the best interest of the child, and ensuring their treatment as victims. The final peace agreement of 24 August recalled the primacy of children’s rights, in accordance with the Constitution of Colombia. Children leaving the FARC-EP camps will receive care and services to respond to their specific needs to ensure their reintegration with the support of UNICEF and its partner NGOs.
More than 2.4 million people have fled their homes due to the conflict in North East Nigeria. An estimated 1.87 million people have been internally displaced, 77 percent of whom are hosted in Borno State. In some places,children are dying of malnutrition and other diseases.
Since January 2016, counter-insurgency operations launched by the Nigerian security forces, in cooperation with the Multi-National Joint Task Force against the extremist group Boko Haram, have intensified. The armyhas reclaimed many of the main towns and villages in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa States in northeast Nigeria, enabling access and revealing the full effects of the conflict on civilian populations. But the security situation remains fragile with sporadic insurgent attacks severely impacting on humanitarian needs, access and response priorities. The civilian population in Borno State remains the most vulnerable to violence, which mostly affects women and children.
The conflict has been marked by multiple and grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including death, injury, sexual violence and exploitation, detention, disappearances, attacks on civilian sites and forced recruitment.
As instability and violence persist, the number of South Sudanese seeking safety and shelter in neighbouring countries has crossed the one million mark, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), most of whom are women and children. “They include survivors of violent attacks, sexual assault, children that have been separated from their parents or travelled alone, the disabled, the elderly and people in need of urgent medical care,” said Leo Dobbs, a spokesperson for UNHCR. Dobbs added that more than 185,000 people fled the country since fresh violence erupted in the capital, Juba, in early July, just ahead of the fifth anniversary of the country’s independence. According to the agency, South Sudan is now the fourth country in the world with more than one million refugees. The other three are Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.
In a new report, the UN refugee agency said that more than six million school-age children under its mandate have no school to go to and that refugees are five times more likely to be out of school than the global average.
According to the agency’s new report, Missing Out: Refugee Education in Crisis, only half of refugee children have access to primary education, compared with a global average of more than 90 percent. And as thesechildren become older, the gap further widens: only 22 percent of refugee adolescents attend secondary school compared to a global average of 84 percent.
At the higher education level, just one in every hundred refugees attends university, compared to a global average of 34 percent.
The report also revealed that the global school-age refugee population remained relatively stable at 3.5 million between 2001 and 2010, but since then, it has grown on average by 600,000 children and adolescents annually. In 2014 alone, this population grew by 30 percent.
Furthermore, the agency highlighted that refugees often live in regions where governments are already struggling to educate their own children. They face the additional task of finding places for schools, trained teachers and learning materials for tens or even hundreds of thousands of newcomers, who often do not speak the language of instruction and have frequently missed out on three to four years of schooling.
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