Children are disproportionately affected, displaced and targeted in violence occurring as part of the ongoing conflicts around the world, according to the UN.
Leila Zerrougui, the special representative of the secretary-general for children and armed conflict, said in her annual report that children continued to have their human rights violated in the year to December, 2015, with much of the Middle East and North Africa facing “increasingly complex and widening conflicts” while in Africa and Asia, protracted and relapsing conflicts show no sign of abating.
“Children were disproportionately affected, displaced and often the direct targets of acts of violence intended to cause maximum civilian casualties and terrorize entire communities,” she wrote in the report in which she noted children were often targeted directly by acts of violence “intended to cause maximum civilian casualties and terrorise entire communities”.
Ms Zerrougui said groups perpetrating extreme violence also “particularly targeted children pursuing their right to an education” and expressed concern over the growing number of attacks on schools and the use of schools by military in countries affected by war.
But in positive news, Ms Zerrougui said an anti child-soldier campaign had continued to gather momentum during the year, adding that there were “a significant reduction in verified cases of recruitment and use of children by national security forces, especially in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.”
Among her recommendations, Ms Zerrougui has called for UN member states to treat children associated with armed violence primarily as victims.
