29 May 2009 - CRIN Children and Armed Conflict 131
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**NEWS IN BRIEF**
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UN SECURITY COUNCIL: Update on reform [news]
Negotiations on the Security Council's reform resumed this month.
Five issues are on the reform agenda: the size of an enlarged Council, regional representation, question of the veto, working methods of the Council and its relationship with the General Assembly, and categories of membership. Read letter summarising States' positions on the five themes of the negotiations voiced during the first round (March – April 2009).
The aims of reform include: making the Council more representative of the international community as a whole, improving the efficiency and transparency of its working methods, and making it more democratic and accountable.
“In Larger Freedom”, by Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of the UN, sets out plans for reform in more detail (chapter 5).
Negotiations: Round 2
This round’s goal is for “the membership to advance in more in-depth and more comprehensive negotiations” before moving to a third round. Read details here.
According to the Center for UN Reform Education, “several countries from the main factions … were actively rethinking their positions and potentially inching closer to some common ground for compromises”. The analysis referred to a “compromise proposal” put forward by the Uniting for Consensus Group (UfC) during the April meetings, in which it suggested longer-term seats than it had previously endorsed. Germany, a member of the Group of Four which historically has advocated for permanent seats, expressed openness to the alternative of longer-term seats.
Read the schedule for the second round of negotiations, and a summary of the Chair’s overview of the first round.
Follow the negotiations on the ReformtheUN website, which is tracking the discussions in depth.
Child rights and the Security Council
The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, for maintaining international peace and security.
When a complaint concerning a threat to peace is brought before it, the Council's first action is usually to recommend that the parties try to reach agreement by peaceful means.
In some cases, the Council itself undertakes investigation and mediation. It may appoint Special Representatives or request the Secretary-General to do so.
The Council began to pay attention to the issue of children and armed conflict when it realised that the use of children in armed conflict had serious consequences for peace and stability. Internal conflicts give rise to displaced families and communities, refugee flows across borders and the use of child soldiers creating the conditions for long-term regional and international instability.
Since 1999, the Council has become more active on the issue. While its early resolutions contained mainly generic statements about how children should be treated in conflict situations, from 2001 the resolutions began to contain more concrete requests that addressed the practical reality of children involved in situations of armed conflict.
The Resolutions of the Security Council on this issue are:
1261 (1999), 1314 (2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003), 1539 (2004) and 1612 (2005)
Read CRIN's full briefing on child rights and the Security Council here.
[ReformtheUN, CRIN]
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=20344
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UN SECURITY COUNCIL: Resolution 1612 and Beyond: Strengthening protection for children in armed conflict [publication]
Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict has launched a new policy paper, "UN Security Council Resolution 1612 and Beyond: Strengthening protection for children in armed conflict."
"Resolution 1612 and Beyond" details concrete actions that the United Nations Security Council should take to ensure that children caught in armed conflict are protected from violence and related threats to their security and well-being. The release of the policy paper follows the recent Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict and coincides with the ongoing follow-up on the Presidential Statement adopted by the Security Council in connection to that Open Debate.
For more information, contact:
Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict
c/o Women's Refugee Commission
122 E. 42nd Street, 12th floor, New York, NY 10168, USA
Tel: + 1 212 551 3111
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.watchlist.org
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=20317&flag=report
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SRI LANKA: Coalition calls for UN envoy to urgently investigate abductions and other abuses of children [press release]
Children (under-18s) are being abducted from refugee camps and from Vavuniya town in northern Sri Lanka by paramilitary groups who enjoy tacit support from the Sri Lankan government, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers said today.
The Coalition welcomed the recent initiative by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on children and armed conflict to send a special envoy to Sri Lanka to investigate these and other abuses against children. The Sri Lankan government is reported to have agreed in principle to such a visit.
“The last phase of fighting in Sri Lanka has had a catastrophic impact on children. The special envoy’s visit needs to take place without delay,” said Victoria Forbes Adam, Director of the Coalition. The envoy must be given all necessary support to carry out an independent assessment of the situation to identify measures needed to protect children from abuses. The special envoy also needs to investigate the impact of the broader humanitarian disaster on children. The findings of the Special envoy should be formally submitted to the Security Council, the Coalition said.
The Coalition has received verified reports of abductions of under-18s from inside and outside internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Vavuniya, as well as recruitment and re-recruitment of children by paramilitary groups in the eastern districts of Batticaloa and Trincomalee.
[Source: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers]
Read the full press release here
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=20345&flag=news
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UN: Pakistan displacement may be worst since Rwanda [news]
The U.N. refugee agency has said that nearly 1.5 million people have fled their homes in Pakistan this month, and that fighting between government forces and Taliban militants is uprooting more people faster than probably any conflict since the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s.
"It has been a long time since there has been a displacement this big," said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond, trying to recollect the last time so many people were uprooted in such a short period.
"It could go back to Rwanda," Redmond said, referring to the 1994 massacre of ethnic Tutsis by the majority Hutus in the African country. "It's an enormous number of people."
Redmond spoke as the U.N.'s refugee chief Antonio Guterres returned from a three-day mission to Pakistan, and as Taliban forces vowed to resist military advances in the northwestern Swat Valley until their "last breath."
He said the newly uprooted added to over 550,000 people who were already registered as displaced in northwest Pakistan, meaning there are over 2 million people separated from their homes in the country.
"Humanitarian workers are struggling to keep up with the size and speed of the displacement," Redmond told journalists in Geneva, where UNHCR has its headquarters. He said a lack of help for the displaced and the many thousands of families hosting them could cause more "political destabilisation" for the country.
The U.N. believes around 15 to 20 percent of the displaced are in camps at the moment — around 250,000 in some 24 camps, U.N. humanitarian chief John Holmes said, "which means most people are either with host families, communities, in rented accommodation or somewhere else."
"The situation is volatile and changing rapidly," Holmes told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The International Organization for Migration was sending trucks full of quilts, sleeping mats and other goods to help the influx of people in camps near the city of Peshawar, said spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy.
Still, they were only reaching a fraction of the displaced.
U.N. humanitarian spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs said the global body was preparing to launch an international appeal for aid programmes in the country by the end of the week.
Redmond said it would have to be in the "hundreds of millions of dollars."
"We know these are tough economic times, but we believe the same international community that has found billions to rescue financial systems also has an obligation to rescue people in need," he said.
Holmes said the U.N. had previously asked for an extra $150 million and had only received $50 million in firm contributions as of last week, but since then a number of countries have made pledges.
Holmes said he's confident the $150 million will be funded — and expressed hope that the new appeal, covering 12 months, will be as well.
Since the U.N. doesn't know when the fighting will end and how quickly people will be able to return to their homes, Holmes said the U.N. is planning for a large number of people to remain displaced "for a signficant amount of time because that's the most prudent assumption to make."
He said the U.N. is also reminding all sides to "make sure that civilians are protected insofar as is possible, that they're not targeted, that areas where they're known to be are avoided, that people are not using civilians as protection or human shields."
[Source: Associated Press]
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=20275&flag=news
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PERU: Government condemns use of children by guerrilla group [news]
The Peruvian government has described as “horrific” the use of children by guerrilla group the Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) in its struggle with security forces.
Prime Minister Yehude Simón said this confirmed indications of the Shining Path's morbid practice of using children and women “to finish off” fallen soldiers following confrontations with guerrillas in an Andean area dominated by drug trafficking.
“All such acts which use children are horrendous, and say something about the party which uses them. We must give children moral and ethical values (...) not use them for death, staining their small hands with blood,” Simón told journalists as he left Congress.
Television station Frecuencia Latina issued a preview of a report on the leftist group, which shows up to 17 children with short haircuts like those of the soldiers and organised in a military formation, said Reuters.
The images show some of them handling heavy weapons, such as rifles and machine guns. The next moment the children appear to be playing football.
The report, which will be broadcast next Sunday also shows the children shouting with their right fist raised: “long live Marxism, Leninism, Maosim (...) for the proletarian revolution and world socialist.”...
[Source: El Universal, Caracas. English by CRIN]
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=20315
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**NEWS IN BRIEF**
Myanmar: No More Denial: Children affected by armed conflict (Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict)
http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=20202&flag=report
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