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The Human Rights Council this morning discussed the report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict (E/CN.4/2006/66), Radhika Coomaraswamy. Ms Coomaraswamy said the Council should continue to incorporate specific children in armed conflict when considering country-specific and thematic human rights concerns into its discussions and resolutions. This had been a terrible year for children in armed conflict: in the past, all combatants would create the humanitarian space for the protection of children, but today there was an uphill battle to ensure that these principles remained entrenched. The Council should consider it a primary duty to ensure the protection of civilians during armed conflict, and the vindication of human rights. The report provides an update of ongoing efforts to highlight grave violations against children in armed conflict in order to bring pressure to bear on parties to conflict who violate the rights of children. The report highlights elements of ongoing cooperation with the key components of the United Nations human rights system, while highlighting issues for further cooperation in light of reform efforts under way. The report concludes that reform efforts create a strong momentum for the incorporation of the issue of children affected by armed conflict into the policies, strategic plans and programmes of the key United Nations human rights entities. The Special Representative takes the opportunity to call for the renewal of the commitment by the key United Nations entities to ensure, within their respective roles, that the era of application of international norms and standards for the protection of the rights of war-affected children becomes a reality. Presentation of Report by Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said fifty-seven years after the creation of the Human Rights Commission, the United Nations had, in the creation of the Human Rights Council, placed human rights on an equal footing with security and economic development, making human rights an equal pillar in the work of the Organization. The effective protection of children affected by war should be based on a rights-based approach to child protection which recognised the responsibility of all actors to address violations of those most fundamental rights of children. Core to the advocacy of the Special Rapporteur’s mandate was to seek to identify perpetrators of grave abuses, and bring them to task by all means at its disposal; key among these was the Human Rights Council. Next month the office of the Special Rapporteur would launch its strategic framework for the next two years after in-depth consultation with partners, particularly UNICEF. The Framework set out four main objectives: supporting global initiatives to end grave violations against children affected by armed conflict; promoting rights-based protection for children in armed conflict; making children affected by armed conflict concerns an integral part of peacekeeping and peacebuilding; and raising awareness about children in armed conflict issues before, during, and after conflict situations. In pursuing these objectives, the strategies would be followed of strict monitoring and reporting of violations, advocating with partners and the general public, mainstreaming the issue in all international efforts, and in facilitating research and study in key areas such as international criminal law and the child, the girl child, the needs and concerns of former boy soldiers, and transitional justice. Though the mandate had made impressive headway in the provision of timely monitoring and reporting for the Security Council, more had to be done to engage human rights bodies and actors on the ground, and in Geneva. The Human Rights Council should continue to incorporate specific children in armed conflict when considering country-specific and thematic human rights concerns into its discussions and resolutions. This had been a terrible year for children in armed conflict: in the past, all combatants would create the humanitarian space for the protection of children, but today there was an uphill battle to ensure that these principles remained entrenched. The Council should consider it a primary duty to ensure the protection of civilians during armed conflict, and the vindication of human rights. Impunity should be cast aside, and the independent moral voice of a global community united by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights should reassert itself. Without that reiteration, commitment, and conviction, all else that was attempted was bound to fail. Interactive Dialogue on Children and Armed Conflict KIRSTI POHJANKUKKA (Finland), speaking on behalf of the European Union, said the European Union was strongly committed to addressing the situation of children in armed conflict and was actively implementing the EU Guidelines on Children in Armed Conflicts adopted in 2004. The work of the Special Representative contributed to the efforts of the international community to ensure the protection of human rights of the vulnerable part of society that were children in the context of armed conflicts. What were the most urgent human rights concerns that had been revealed and needed to be addressed in the pilot countries of the monitoring and reporting mechanism? What measures could the Council undertake to promote and protect the human rights of children in conflict? HIRANTHI WIJEMANNE (Sri Lanka) welcomed the report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, which brought to the attention of the Council current efforts to deal with an issue of importance to many Member States. The Government regretted that despite efforts to engage the LTTE through the Action Plan for Children affected by the armed conflict agreed as far back as 2003, it had not yielded positive results. This Action Plan had to be reviewed and redeveloped to address all fundamental issues, in addition to dealing with the cessation of recruitment and use of children as soldiers. JEAN DANIEL VIGNY (Switzerland) welcomed the Special Representative’s last reports on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Sudan, and welcomed the recommendations presented by the Security Council Working Group on the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the report on the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sudan and Uganda, what were the next countries the Special Rapporteur intended to visit; was the Special Rapporteur in a position to define or determine best practices for non-State actors in her work; and in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Sudan, demobilisation and reintegration programmes gave rise to the question as to whether they were including the necessary medical and emotional assistance that children, in particular girls, needed? SARAH FILOTAS (Canada) applauded the initiative of the Special Representative’s visit to Uganda last June and looked forward to hearing how implementation of monitoring and reporting efforts and of the action plan were progressing. Children became more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS during armed conflict. Should consideration of HIV/AIDS be integrated into reporting on children and armed conflict? SEYMUR MARDALIYEV (Azerbaijan) welcomed the report of Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict. The monitoring of the situation of children caught in armed conflicts should be of a preventive nature and should be done before the Security Council was seized of the matter, as the Security Council was a measure of last resort. Azerbaijan asked the Independent Eexpert if she was planning to extend her studies to other regions of the world, in addition to Asia and Africa. HELEN HORSINGTON (Australia) said Australia had been active in ratifying international instruments that sought to enshrine the protection of children, and sought to address the violations of children’s rights that took place during conflict. Australia had recently ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The Special Rapporteur’s report and recommendations were welcomed, as they aimed at incorporating issues linked to children in armed conflict in the United Nations' core policies and projects. GALINA KHVAN (Russian Federation) said the report was an additional contribution to protect the rights of children and asked how the Special Representative designed six categories in her report and the criteria used to establish those categories. HAMATO MUKHTAR MUSA (Sudan) categorically rejected the accusations present in the report with reference to the use of children in the military conflict in Sudan. Sudan’s law prohibited the use of children in hostilities, and recruitment of children in the armed forces. Sudan did not use children in military hostilities. There had been violations of the rights of children carried out by other parties. SERGIO CERDA (Argentina) said the Special Rapporteur was thanked for her report and presentation. Argentina had ratified the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and agreed with the Special Rapporteur that it was important to ensure coordination with the other holders of mandates and with the Committee on the Rights of the Child. With respect to victims, violence against women could not be separated from this issue. The Special Rapporteur should examine issues linked not only to children in armed conflict, but also to the plight of women in such circumstances. Key to this was identifying those responsible for the recruitment of children. Due to the helplessness of the victims, it was most important to fight against impunity. YURIKO FUKUSHIMA, of World Young Women's Christian Association in a joint statement with World Alliance of Young Men's Christian Association and United Nations Watch, said in every continent, wherever there was conflict, children were disproportionately affected: killed, maimed, recruited as soldiers, orphaned, displaced and injured. Sexual violence during armed conflict also accelerated the spread of HIV/AIDS. The Council should take comprehensive and long-term action to ensure the rights, protection and well being of the girl child before, during and after armed conflicts. KAREN PARKER, of International Educational Development, said that the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict faced a difficult task in pursuing her mandate. International Educational Development recognized that the problem of child soldiers had been a major concern in certain African conflicts due to the extremely young age of many of them in proportion to adult soldiers. However, International Educational Development was also concerned that undue attention, usually for geopolitical interests, was paid to so-called child soldiers in other conflicts to the detriment of the full attention to the overall situation of children in these conflicts. Nowhere was this more evident than in the armed conflict in Sri Lanka. BASSAN KANTOR, of North-South XXI, said there was great concern as to the description that was given to the war that was lately waged on Lebanon, as children were said to have been used as human shields. There was information refuting this in the reports of the Special Rapporteurs who had gone to Lebanon on fact-finding missions. There was evidence from many NGOs that children were the victims of armed conflict, and had never been used as human shields. There had been deliberate massacres of displaced persons, including women and children, in acts that were crimes against humanity, and reports of 1 million cluster bombs dropped in the last few days of the war. All this testified to the fact that these were used only to harm children, as these remaining bombs killed one to two children every day, and this would only get worse. It was hoped the fact-finding mission would bring these crimes to light. Concluding Statement by Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict RADHIKA COOMARASWAMY, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for children and armed conflict, said the Security Council had set up a monitoring mechanism so that her office would obtain accurate information from States and UN partners. The checks and balances of data were carried out by the Secretary-General’s office. In Sri Lanka, she had appointed an officer to visit and gather information from that country. At the moment she had planned to visit Lebanon and she had informed the Government of Sudan of her desire to visit that country. As indicated by the Swiss delegation, focus should be made on demobilization and integration of former children combatants. As to the challenges she faced in her monitoring efforts, she said the main violation of recruitment of children was a problem that needed a mechanism to be designed. Her office had an international scope in monitoring the rights of children and armed conflict. The six categories of violations were based on international humanitarian law. The security forces of Sudan did not recruit children but the armed groups were involved in recruiting children and dragging them into the conflict. The International Court of Justice had now taken firm measures with regard to the involvement of children in armed conflict. Right of Reply SARALA FERNANDO (Sri Lanka), in exercise of a right of reply, said International Educational Development had tried one more time to spread disinformation on Sri Lanka. NGOs that credited LTTE leaders to the Council should instead spend their money in order to ensure that all children in Sri Lanka could grow in harmony and peace. Further information