Secretary-General of the United Nations: annual report on Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC)

On June 16, 2026, the Secretary-General of the United Nations published a report analysing children and armed conflicts (CAAC), covering the period from January to December 2025. 

The report analyses the impacts of armed conflicts on children and details the violations committed, including the recruitment and use of children, the killing and maiming of children, rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, attacks on schools and hospitals and the denial of humanitarian assistance. 

Overall, the report identifies 38,558 grave violations, involving 24,174 children during 2025, with one third of victims being girls, the highest number of violations and affected children since the establishment of the CAAC mandate in 1996. 

During 2025, for the first time, it is Government forces who were the main perpetrators of violations against children, specifically due to the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas and the surge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the targeting processes. Indeed, the most verified violations involved the killing and maiming of children, with 6,266 children killed and 7,058 maimed (representing an increase of , respectively, 34% and 10%).

In particular, the areas where the most violations occurred were the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Nigeria, Myanmar and Somalia. 

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Vanessa Frazier, has stated “2025 was without a doubt one of the darkest chapters for child protection since monitoring began”.