AREAS OF ACTION

Through different areas of action states, donors, international organisations, and the humanitarian community can demonstrate that children’s voices are heard, that they promote child rights, and champion the protection of children in armed conflict.

We call for participants to act within their respective areas of expertise and responsibility to:

 1. Make political commitments to protect children in armed conflict

 2. Take appropriate actions to minimise the impact of armed conflict on children, prevent violations of international  law against children, and enhance compliance with and ensure accountability for any violations of international law against children?

 3. Realise a fully funded, sustainable humanitarian child protection response that is accountable to children

We welcome your engagement and encourage a wide variety of pledges and commitments.

You are invited to sign up to one or more of the suggested actions under the different themes or to register your individual ambitions and commitments as relevant:

© ICRC 

Political, legal, and practical measures are urgently needed to prevent and address the suffering of children affected by armed conflict. This could include actions that strengthen the protection against harm caused to civilians, including children, by military operations, that ensure accountability for violations of international law against children, as well as actions that significantly bolster the humanitarian response to protect children.

Mobilise significant sustainable, flexible, multi-year funding for child protection within UN-coordinated humanitarian and refugee response plans, the ICRC operational plan and other humanitarian and development efforts to protect children and promote their rights, dignity, and resilience.

Consider the ratification of or accession to any relevant additional international and regional instruments to strengthen the protection and rights of children in armed conflict, if not done already, and ensure full compliance with such instruments.

© Sam Tarling/Save the Children

Armed conflicts in urban areas have particularly devastating consequences for children. Urban warfare causes civilian deaths and extensive human suffering that can be addressed through a range of measures.

© ICRC

Armed actors are key to the protection of children in armed conflict, and to ensuring safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access.

© UNICEF/Gilbertson VII Photo 

Children must be protected from recruitment and use by armed forces and armed groups. Those who have experienced recruitment and/or use by any armed force or armed group must be released without precondition, treated primarily as victims, and provided adequate reintegration support.

 © UNICEF/Holt  

Children must be protected from sexual violence in armed conflict. Support for survivor-centered programs that prevent, mitigate, and respond to sexual violence and that put children and their needs at the center, while also fighting impunity, must be increased. Stigma and discrimination against child survivors of sexual violence, as well as for children born of sexual violence in conflict must be addressed.

 © Mihaela Oprisan/Save The Children

Children who are displaced and, on the move, too often on their own, are at great risk of violence, exploitation, and abuse. Preventing and responding to displacement and family separation due to conflict is crucial to protect children from harm.

© UNOCHA Pierre Peron

Protection of children in situations of armed conflict is essential and lifesaving, and a primary objective of any humanitarian response. Provision of high-quality child protection services must be a priority in every humanitarian and refugee response plan.

APPEALS

The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG CAAC) engages with parties to conflict, provides technical assistance to joint action prevention plans, and provides capacity building to strengthen the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism, and it wishes to create a mobile child protection expert unit to train, reinforce and assist United Nations offices, departments and agencies that are a part of the Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) working groups in situations of concern on the CAAC agenda.

For financial contributions to assist the OSRSG CAAC to meet its objectives and special needs, please contact Ms. Florence Gaspar who will explain processes to contribute to the Trust Fund of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (32NNA), 304 East 45th Street, New York, NY 10017, and email Ms. Gaspar at gasparf@un.org.