UNICEF: “Children are the first victims during war”
Despite being protected by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), children are increasingly affected by conflicts that rage on in different parts of the globe.
Whether maimed or killed by violence, suffering from starvation and disease, separated from their families, directly recruited to participate in the conflict, or indirectly prevented from accessing healthcare and education, the rights of children are being violated by conflicts across the world.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has recently released annual figures for children missing due to conflict, revealing a worrying upward trend in the past 5 years. In 2013, the ICRC were searching for 5,591 children who had disappeared because of war. By 2017, this number is almost three times that figure, with 15,386 children reportedly missing due to conflict.
Child recruitment is an escalating problem worldwide. IOHR’s International Correspondent Trish Lynch recently interviewed, on IOHRTV, a spokeswoman from Child Soldiers International. Sandra Olsson revealed that between 2009-2015, over 8,500 children were recruited in conflict and that children participated in at least 18 armed conflicts in 2016.
Despite the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) setting 15 as the minimum age for recruitment or use in armed conflict, 50% of the 8,500 children were under the age of 15.
In South Sudan, thousands of children are recruited by armed groups, many of whom are left dead by the ensuing violence. In the first 10 months of 2017, violence in Somalia resulted in the recruitment of 1,740 children. Since the conflict in Yemen escalated in March 2015, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has verified 1,703 cases of child recruitment.
As the lines between combatant and civilian continue to be blurred by modern warfare, children are increasingly coming under the line of fire. The ongoing 3-year conflict in Yemen has resulted in the deaths of at least 5,000 children, according to UNICEF. In Afghanistan, close to 700 children were killed in the first nine months of 2017. In Myanmar, at least 730 children under the age of 5 were killed during the military crackdown in 2017 that targeted the minority Muslim Rohingya population.
Specific conflicts are harmfully affecting children in different ways. In Syria for example, where civilians have endured 7 years of ongoing violence, children live without access to safe water, sanitation and food. Across Syria, approximately 1.75 million children are not in education, whilst some 2.6 million children make up the ever-growing Syrian refugee population.
Children have to survive the intense bombardments and violence, including being at the mercy of chemical weaponry as evidenced by the recent airstrike on Douma in Eastern Ghouta. In the first two months of 2018, 1,000 children were reportedly killed or maimed by violence in Syria. If that level of violence persists, this will be the deadliest year for Syrian children since the outbreak of conflict in 2011.
“Children are dying before our eyes,” says UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore, “this can be stopped. It needs to stop now.”
Militant extremist group Boko Haram have terrorised West Africa’s Lake Chad region since 2009, particularly in north-eastern Nigeria and northern Cameroon, and children have played a fundamental role in this violence.
At least 135 children participated in suicide bombings throughout 2017, almost five times the figure for 2016. Approximately 13,000 children are estimated to have been recruited or held in detention since 2009.
Boko Haram’s violence has left entire villages without access to clean water, adequate food supplies, healthcare and schools. In 2018, over 450,000 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition – an estimated 49,000 of these children will not survive if they do not receive urgent treatment.
“We haven’t found the right words to describe the magnitude of the problem,” said the Chief of Nutrition at UNICEF in Nigeria.
According to the expert Scott MacEachern, “Boko Haram” translates to “deceitful education is forbidden”, which reflects the anti-colonial (and thus anti-western) attitudes of the violent extremist cell. Since 2009, almost 1,400 schools have been destroyed in Borno state, Boko Haram’s place of origin. Additionally, the high-profile mass kidnappings of over 200 school girls from the town of Chibok in 2014 and over 100 school girls from the town of Dapchi in 2018, illustrates the deliberate targeting of children in Boko Haram’s insurgency. Boko Haram uses children as instruments of war, and intentionally aims to violate the rights of children in Nigeria.
From these harrowing statistics, it is clear children are wrongfully being used as targets and instruments of war across the globe.
Article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) states: “No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
Parties to all conflicts worldwide must adhere to international humanitarian law and ensure the necessary steps are taken to exclude children from the negative and deadly effects of warfare.