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A Palestinian child carries empty containers to get food distributed by
charities as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza, on 25 January.
[ ]
A Palestinian child carries empty containers to get food distributed by
charities as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza, on 25 January.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
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A Palestinian child carries empty containers to get food distributed by
charities as Israeli attacks continue in Rafah, Gaza, on 25 January.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The ObserverChildren
The world is waging war on its children, in an obscene mockery of
international law
Simon Tisdall
Simon Tisdall
From Gaza to Ukraine, from Sudan to Myanmar, youngsters are being
raped, abducted, maimed, killed and even recruited as soldiers
Sat 10 Feb 2024 12.00 ESTLast modified on Sat 10 Feb 2024 21.30 EST
*
*
*
Callous disregard for civilian lives and safety is a disturbing feature
of modern armed conflict. From Ukraine and Gaza to Sudan and Myanmar,
respect for the "laws of war" is being eroded or is non-existent.
Non-combatants are deliberately targeted. Most shocking, and
unforgivable, is the wanton harm - the UN term is "grave violations" -
done to children.
In his latest report on children and conflict, UN secretary general
Antonio Guterres warned that children "continued to be
disproportionately affected" by war-related violence and abuses. By
this, he meant killing and maiming, rape, sexual violence, abductions,
school attacks and recruitment of child soldiers. All were on the rise,
he said.
Some examples: Myanmar's civil war brought a 140% increase in grave
violations in 2022. In South Sudan, intercommunal violence played havoc
with children's lives. Countries with the highest UN-recorded totals of
abuses were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel-Palestine,
Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Yemen. Guterres's report was
compiled before the Gaza war erupted. More than 11,500 Palestinians
aged under 18 have been killed, local officials say. Many more have
been injured. About 24,000 children have lost one or both parents;
17,000 are separated or unaccompanied. Jewish children were among the
hostages seized by Hamas on 7 October. Now a new disaster looms in
Rafah.
The UN children's fund, Unicef, says the war has had a severe impact on
mental health, with more than 1 million children in Gaza needing
support. Typical symptoms include "high levels of persistent anxiety,
loss of appetite, they can't sleep, they have emotional outbursts of
panic every time they hear the bombings", a spokesman said. War-related
malnutrition and disease are additional deadly foes.
This tsunami of misery makes a mockery of international law,
specifically the Geneva conventions. "In all wars, it's children who
suffer first and suffer most," Unicef says. "Even wars have rules. No
child should be cut off from essential services... No child should be
held hostage... Hospitals and schools must be protected from
bombings... The cost to children will be borne [by] generations to
come."
Russia's illegal abduction of thousands of children after its 2022
invasion of Ukraine is another way of waging war on the most
vulnerable
Amid the ongoing failure to agree a ceasefire, it is estimated that a
child is still dying every 15 minutes in Gaza, two mothers every hour.
These horrors provoked an impassioned cry of protest from Israeli
author Gideon Levy last week. He accused the army of indulging in a
"violent rampage" and Israeli society of refusing to reflect on the
price it might ultimately pay. "Israel is erasing generations in Gaza
and its soldiers are killing children in numbers competing with the
cruellest of wars. This will not and cannot be forgotten. How can a
people ever forget those who killed its children in such a manner? How
can people of conscience around the world remain silent?" Levy asked.
Russia's illegal abduction of thousands of children after its 2022
invasion of Ukraine is another way of waging war on the most vulnerable
- and demoralising the enemy. Kyiv has documented almost 20,000 cases
out of a possible 200,000. They form the basis of war crimes charges
brought against Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, by the
international criminal court.
While the abductions have been well publicised in the west, too little
has been done to rescue the victims (or to prosecute Putin).
"Russia is actively erasing their Ukrainian identity and inflicting
unbelievable emotional and psychological damage," Latvia's president,
Edgars Rinkevics, told a conference devoted to "Russia's war on
children" in Riga this month.
Putin's "re-education" trafficking of children is effectively a weapon
of war, aimed at obliterating Ukraine's future. Olena Zelenska, the
wife of Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said time was running
out as the children grew up. "Russia is telling them they are not
wanted, that nobody is looking for them," she said. As usual, Russia is
lying.
Less watched conflicts and emergencies are equally destructive of
children's lives. Last week saw belated focus on the crisis gripping
drought-stricken northern Ethiopia following the war in Tigray. More
than 3 million people there face acute hunger. Younger children and
babies are most at risk in a country where 45% of the 126m-strong
population is aged under 15.
"Veterans of relief operations are comparing the crisis to the
situation in 1984, when a combination of drought and war caused a
famine that killed up to a million people," wrote regional expert Alex
de Waal. "The UN estimates that more than 20 million Ethiopians are in
need of food aid."
The forcible recruitment of children by armed groups, terrorists and
criminal gangs is another global growth area. The UN says more than
105,000 children, boys and girls, were involved in violent conflicts
between 2005 and 2022, although the actual figure is probably much
higher. Child soldiers are not only made to fight. They are also used
as guards, lookouts and couriers, and are exploited sexually.
In Ecuador, president Daniel Noboa's newly declared war on gangs has
highlighted how minors are sucked into, and become victims of, powerful
criminal groups. In the first half of 2023, 1,326 children aged 12 to
17 were reportedly arrested for crimes such as contract killings, drug
dealing and robbery. In 2022, 289 minors were murdered.
Ecuador is not untypical of the threats facing children on a range of
fronts worldwide. In Myanmar, Burkina Faso and Mali, attacks on schools
and hospitals are increasing, the UN says. Amnesty International warns
that nearly 10 years after Boko Haram terrorists abducted hundreds of
schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria is still failing to protect its
children. Denial of humanitarian access, as by the Afghan Taliban, is
another lethal problem. And so it goes on.
How shaming all this is. How truly shocking. That adults and nations
choose to fight each other is normal, though regrettable. But a world
war on children? How did it come to this?
Simon Tisdall is the Observer's foreign affairs commentator
Explore more on these topics
* Children
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* Israel-Gaza war
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