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Report calls for protection of children from war

Monday, 11 November 1996: "The world is being sucked into a desolate moral vacuum," according to Graça Machel, author of the United Nations Report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, launched today. The report, detailing the suffering of children caught up in some 30 wars raging around the world, is the most comprehensive analysis of this issue ever compiled. Its conclusions are stark and uncompromising. "Whatever the causes of modern-day brutality towards children," says Ms. Machel, "the time has come to call a halt."

The result of two years of research and consultation led by Ms. Machel, the report is far more than an assessment of the current situation. "Above all else," she says "this report is a call to action. It is unconscionable that we so clearly and consistently see children's rights attacked and that we fail to defend them. It is unforgivable that children are assaulted, violated, murdered, and yet our conscience is not revolted nor our sense of dignity challenged."

In 1994, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali appointed Ms. Machel, a former Mozambican Education Minister, as his Expert to undertake a study on the impact of armed conflict on children in response to a call by the General Assembly for a detailed examination of the issue. Ms. Machel is in New York to present her report to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. If the report recommendations are adopted by the member states of the UN, they will form the framework for future action to safeguard children caught up in conflicts.

While she proposes a number of concrete measures to protect children from the impact of armed conflict, Ms. Machel's most fundamental demand is that "children simply have no part in warfare."

The report attacks the global complacency and cynicism that has allowed two million children to die in armed conflicts in the past decade, and three times as many to be seriously injured or permanently disabled. "Millions of children are caught up in conflicts in which they are not merely bystanders but targets," says Ms. Machel. "The international community must denounce this attack on children for what it is -- intolerable and unacceptable."

The need for concrete action has never been more urgent, says the report. It comments on the changing nature of warfare -- with today's wars fought not between States but within them, from village to village and from street to street. This has put civilians in the firing line and they now account for over 90 per cent of war victims. About half of these casualties are children. Many are killed by bombs and bullets, others are mutilated by landmines. Many more die as a result of the more indirect and intangible evils of war such as the destruction of health centres and water supplies, and the tearing apart of families and communities.

The ready availability of weapons has increased the bloodshed, according to the report, contributing to the recruitment of tens of thousands of boys and girls into armed forces. The new generation of assault rifles, with their simple lightweight designs, can be carried, stripped and re-assembled by children aged ten or even younger. They are also inexpensive; in Uganda, an AK-47 assault rifle can be purchased for the price of a chicken.

The report calls for a global campaign to stop the recruitment of children under the age of 18 into armed forces and to ensure that all forces demobilize those under 18 immediately. It urges all countries to support the speedy adoption of the draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, raising the minimum age of recruitment and participation in armed forces to 18 years.

It calls for the appointment of a Special Representative of the Secretary-General to monitor progress on the report's recommendations and to keep the whole issue of children in conflict high on the international agenda.

Recognizing the desperate needs of the growing numbers of internally displaced people, the report recommends that UNICEF should provide leadership for the protection and care of internally displaced children in each conflict situation.

Highlighting the special threats posed to women and girls during conflicts, with the systematic and increasing use of rape and other gender-based violence as weapons of war, the report recommends that all cases of wartime rape and sexual torture should be prosecuted as war crimes and that all military personnel, including those engaged in peace-keeping, should receive special training on their responsibilities to women and children.

Even after conflicts have ended, children are still exposed to the dangers posed by an estimated 110 million anti-personnel landmines scattered through the world's war zones. Supporting the growing international campaign for a complete ban on the production, use, trade and stockpiling of landmines, the report emphasizes the importance of humanitarian mine clearance, gender and age appropriate mine awareness programmes and the need for child centred rehabilitation. It suggests that such initiatives be particularly financed by companies and countries which have profited from the sale of these deadly devices.

The report argues that health, education and psycho-social support should be the three pillars of all emergency interventions in times of war to protect the long-term development of children.

It also calls on the international community to ensure that sanctions are carefully targeted and do not undermine the basic social services that are so essential to the well-being of children. The impact of sanctions on children should be carefully monitored and humanitarian exemptions should be child-focused.

In the long term, the report says, the international community must take steps to stop wars breaking out in the first place, including addressing the social and economic roots of conflicts and banning arms shipments to conflict zones. In the meantime, however, all those involved in efforts to help children affected by conflict have a responsibility to report child rights violations.

It calls for widespread dissemination and aggressive enforcement of the internationally agreed standards which already exist to protect children, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Geneva Conventions and their protocols and the Convention to End Discrimination Against Women.

Ms. Machel says: "These recommendations are practical and achievable. We simply need to have the will to make them happen. The alternative -- to do nothing -- is unthinkable. For the sake of future peace, we must invest in the protection of children today."

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