30 December 2005 CRIN Children and Armed Conflict 93
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- SUDAN: Worsening conditions for children after three years of conflict [publication]
- COTE D'IVOIRE: Children's plight worsened by lingering conflict [news]
- UNITED NATIONS: New body to help States out of war [news]
- CHILD SOLDIERS: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Newsletter [publication]
- CHILD PROTECTION: Protecting Children in Conflict Zones [workshop]
- PARTICIPATION: Increasing the Participation of Adolescent Girls [publication]
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SUDAN: Worsening conditions for children after three years of conflict [publication]
[NEW YORK, 19 December 2005] - For almost three years the children of Darfur have borne the brunt of a conflict that has forced millions to flee their homes. And in spite of continuing humanitarian aid, many are still facing severe food shortages and disease because of the ongoing insecurity.
Malnutrition rates in the last year have been halved among children living in camps which provide food, shelter and medical care. But an estimated 2.5 million people are not receiving any help because they live in isolated and dangerous areas. Children in these groups are dying from malnutrition and other preventable diseases.
For almost three years, marauding Janjaweed militia groups have driven Darfur villagers from their homes, stolen their cattle, destroyed wells and burnt buildings. The threat of violence continues, and villagers who are afraid to return home have flooded into urban areas and temporary camps. An estimated 3.4 million people, equivalent to almost 51 per cent of the total population in the region, have been affected by the crisis in Darfur.
With food and water becoming scarce throughout the region, camps such as Abu Shouk on the outskirts of Darfur's northern capital El Fashir are almost the only places where children and adults can receive life saving assistance.
At Abu Shouk, UNICEF and partners have provided health clinics and latrines, as well as schools for 13,000 primary aged children. Some 1.3 million children are living in 200 similar camps around Darfur and neighbouring parts of Chad.
"These camps were set up to provide immediate temporary care, but they are becoming permanent fixtures," says UNICEF Emergency Communications Officer Gordon Weiss. "Unless security is improved the people living here will not be able to return to their homes and begin producing their own food. Millions of others are already struggling to survive and the food shortages in Darfur are only going to get worse."
More international aid will be needed for another five years simply to ensure the survival of Darfur's children. Political solutions are needed to secure a future in which they can thrive.
For more information, contact:
UNICEF
H-9, 3 UN Plaza, New York, NY 10017, US
Tel: + 1 212 824 6127; Fax: + 1 212 326 7731
Email: netmaster@unicef.org
Website: http://www.unicef.org
Read the Report
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COTE D'IVOIRE: Children's plight worsened by lingering conflict [news]
[ABIDJAN, 28 December 2005] - Children's plight is worsening in Cote d'Ivoire - West Africa's one-time oasis of stability, split in two in 2002 and slogging along ever since in a state of 'no war, no peace.' The conflict forced 700,000 children to abandon their studies, according to UNICEF.
"Thousands of children are up against poverty, abandonment, lack of education, malnutrition, negligence and vulnerability," Youssouf Oomar, UNICEF representative in Cote d'Ivoire said last week on the release of the agency's annual report on the state of the world's children.
Cote d'Ivoire ranks among the 15 countries with the highest under-five mortality rates in the world, the UNICEF report says, and is one of the few countries where child mortality is on the rise. The rate climbed to 194 deaths per thousand children under five in 2004, from 157 deaths per thousand in 1990.
UNICEF puts armed conflict among the greatest threats to childhood worldwide, along with poverty and HIV/AIDS. Armed conflict exposes children to exploitation as combatants or sex workers, guts basic infrastructure, and devastates primary education, the report says. Most often, UNICEF says, children are among the most vulnerable when conflict precludes essential services like health and protection. For Cote d'Ivoire's children, Oomar said, "Day in and day out life is a fight for survival."
National exams have not been held in the north in over two years, leaving some 60,000 students in limbo. Without their end-of-year diplomas, their studies will have been in vain. The UN has repeatedly called on the Ivorian government to get the education system back on track.
In a statement earlier this year UNICEF said the blockage "not only threatens [children's] educational development, but also their physical safety: thousands of children who should be studying and writing for exams are out on the streets with no certainty of their future."
The situation also breeds resentment and potential violence among youth - an explosive element in a country whose condition is already fragile, UNICEF warned.
[Source: IRIN News]
Read the article in full
Read the State of the World's Children 2006
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UNITED NATIONS: New body to help States out of war [news]
[UNITED NATIONS, 20 December 2005] - The UN General Assembly and the Security Council voted on 20 December to create a peacebuilding Commission designed to stop renewed warfare by helping countries develop once the fighting stops. The Commission is one of the few UN reforms recommended by a UN summit in September that has been adopted by the 191-member General Assembly.
Assembly President Jan Eliasson called the vote "historic" and "our best chance to reverse the trend, which in recent years, has seen around half the countries end their fighting only to lapse back into conflict within five years."
But the thorniest reform issues are still in dispute, such as a new Human Rights Council and comprehensive management changes as well as a controversial two-year budget. "We have a collective interest in ensuring that reforms required to reduce costs and waste across the board are successful," US Ambassador John Bolton said.
The 15-nation Security Council passed an identical Resolution to the one in the General Assembly and a second one selecting members for the Commission. Argentina and Brazil abstained, arguing that the big powers on the Council were given too much weight.
Nevertheless, Annan also called the Commission "historic" because the UN system lacked a dedicated entity to keep the peace in volatile countries once UN troops leave. "Too often, a fragile peace has been allowed to crumble into renewed conflict," Annan said." The new Commission, he said, would focus on reconstruction and the building of institutions.
[Source: Reuters]
Read the article in fullÂ
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CHILD SOLDIERS: Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers Newsletter [publication]
Issue 14 of the Child Soldiers Newsletter has just been released. The Child Soldiers Newsletter is published three times a year by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, with the support of the Human Security Program at Foreign Affairs Canada.
The Winter 2005-2006 edition includes articles on the following subjects:
- Non-state armed groups and child recruitment
- Child soldiers news
- Demobilisation and reintegration updates
- Lessons for negotiating with armed groups
- Voices of youth: songs of experience
- United Nations Security Council: armed groups and 1612
- Action appeal: Indonesia
- A deed of commitment for armed groups?
- European Union guidelines on children in armed conflict
- CSC highlights
- Editorial: sound basis for new challenges
- About child soldiers newsletter
For more information, contact:
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (CSC)
2nd Floor, 2-12 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9FP, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)20 7713 2761; Fax: + 44 (0)20 7713 2794
Email: info@child-soldiers.org
Website: http://www.child-soldiers.org
Read the Newsletter
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CHILD PROTECTION: Protecting Children in Conflict Zones [workshop]
Date: 14-15 January 2006
Location: Los Angeles, USA
Are international mechanisms designed to protect children in conflict zones effective or even adequate? Are there indigenous forms of protection for those children? What can we do to ensure that children are afforded some measure of protection during armed conflicts?
The above questions will be addressed at a workshop on "Protecting Children in Conflict Zones" to be held at the University of Southern California Law school from 14-15 January 2006. This workshop will bring together academic scholars, legal experts, and representatives of intergovernmental organisation (IGOs) and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for a critical assessment of existing international Conventions, Charters, Treaties, Protocols, Resolutions etc., designed to protect war-affected children. It is part of a three-year research project on Children and War funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
For more information, contact:
Sangeet Dhaliwal: sangeet@ualberta.ca
Website: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/childrenandwar
More
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PARTICIPATION: Increasing the Participation of Adolescent Girls [publication]
[25 November 2005] - On the occasion of the International Day Against Violence Against Women, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and the Gender and Peacebuilding Working Group of the Canadian Peacebuilding Co-ordinating Committee have produced a fact sheet on Adolescent girls affected by violent conflict.
Through this document, both organisations seek to raise awareness about the specific situations of adolescent girls affected by violent conflict and increase support for adolescent girls' participation in conflict prevention, peacebuilding, and community development. In armed conflict situations, adolescent girls have distinctive experiences that are often different from those of older women, younger children and adolescent boys. Yet, adolescent girls tend to fall through the cracks of programming, in part because they are not women, and not children.
In producing this fact sheet, the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, and the Gender and Peacebuilding Working Group of the Canadian Peacebuilding Co-ordinating Committee, urge the international community to recognise the roles and capacities of adolescent girls and to give them increased policy and programme attention. Doing so will help to protect girls from violence and its effects, and foster their participation in conflict prevention, peacebuilding, reconstruction and development processes.
For more information, contact:
Surendrini Wijeyaratne, Working Group Co-ordinator
Gender and Peacebuilding Working Group
Canadian Peacebuilding Co-ordinating Committee
1 Nicholas St. Suite 1216, Ottawa, Ontario, CA K1N 7B7
Tel: + 1 613 241 3446; Fax: + 1 613 241 4846
Email: surendrini@peacebuild.ca
Website: http://www.peacebuild.ca
Read the publication
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