Children in Gaza do not receive humanitarian aid for long periods. Special Representative for Children’s Rights: 2025 should be a year of compassion and hope Human Rights
The year that should have been a year of celebrating progress in protecting children’s rights turned instead into an incredible suffering of children in conflict zones. This was recalled in the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict on the eve of the new year.
The year 2024 marked the 35th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. At the same time, children were killed and seriously injured in hot spots around the world. Schools and hospitals were targeted by parties to the conflicts. Children were denied the humanitarian aid they so desperately needed.
Airstrikes, rocket attacks, and widespread use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas continued to wreak havoc in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan, Lebanon, Myanmar, and Ukraine. The use of anti-personnel mines also resulted in numerous child casualties.
The Office of the Special Representative recalls the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the recruitment of children as soldiers. In 2024, this practice began to be used by armed groups, as well as government forces, even more often, including in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Lake Chad Basin, Mozambique, the Sahel, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Haiti.
Most of the child victims were abducted and recruited by force. Girls were abducted for the purpose of sexual exploitation. The number of forced marriages has increased.
Children have become the “face of war,” the UN notes. “Their pain is a stain on our collective conscience,” said Special Representative Virginia Gamba.
Providing safe and unimpeded humanitarian access to children, implementing international humanitarian law, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, banning the military use of schools, and eliminating anti-personnel mines are essential steps to help children survive armed conflict when adults are unwilling to commit to peace.
“As we enter 2025, let us choose compassion over indifference and peace over war. Together, we can rewrite these children’s stories – not with fear and loss, but with healing and hope,” Gamba said.
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