New global initiative to end recruitment, use of children in armed conflict

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui launched on Tuesday a global initiative to end the recruitment and use of children by Government security forces in armed conflict by 2016. "This initiative aims to deepen cooperation with Governments that have committed to ending wider-age recruitment", she said in her statement to the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council. "I have initiated bilateral consultations, which will be complemented by country-specific strategies to expedite the implementation of Action Plans and support concerned Member States in achieving full compliance. These measures will be undertaken in close collaboration with other child protection actors both within and outside the United Nations system", Zerrougui added. Zerrougui wishes to welcome the advances achieved by Member States at the multilateral level in furthering international legal frameworks for the protection of children and achieving greater compliance with existing international legal obligations: the adoption of the Arms Trade Treaty by the General Assembly in April 2013 constitutes an important opportunity for child protection. "Once entered into force, it will determine a prohibition of arms sales to State Parties that engage in child recruitment, falling in line with the long-standing interpretation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. I also wish to welcome five additional ratifications of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC), bringing the total number of ratifications to 152", she explained. Zerrougui wishes to further commend the development of the Lucens Guidelines, which aims to reduce military use of schools and to minimize the negative impact of armed conflict on the safety and education of schoolchildren. The role of the Human Rights Council is especially important to ensure children's rights at times of confliict. While much has been done in monitoring, responding and preventing grave violations against children, the Human Rights Council, through its Special Precedents, can greatly contribute to strengthening the protection of children. She calls on the Council to include child protection concerns and violations of child rights in armed confliict, in all new and renewed mandates of its Special Procedures and Commissions of Inquiries, and to foster greater accountability for perpetrators. "Greater focus is needed to ensure that children's economic, social and cultural rights are protected even in times of conflict. I wish to invite this Council, its Advisory Committee and the United Nations system as a whole to work together to identify practical solutions to ensure that children have access to education and health care that responds to their specific needs and circumstances during conflict and displacement," she added. She further calls on Member States who have not yet done so to ratify the Optional Protocol on the involvement of Children in armed Confliict as well as the Arms Trade Treaty, and to translate these obligations into concrete actions at the national level. She also calls on Member States to endorse and incorporate the Lucens Guidelines into their legislation, military doctrine and manuals to better protect schools from military use. "The protracted war in Syria and renewed instability in many parts of the world did not spare children, who continue to bear the brunt of today's confliict. We must strengthen our collective action to respond to the plight of conflict-affected children; if we fail to protect their rights, their schools and ultimately their future we call into question our common and longstanding commitment to uphold human rights and international humanitarian law. We must do more to translate these commitments into action and to save children from the scourge of confliict. I count on your support in redoubling together our efforts", Zerrougui said.