UN: Worrying increase in child soldiers recruitment in 2024
On the last day of 2024, the UN has drawn attention to one of the rising concerns in the world: the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was adopted by the majority of countries around the world in 1989, is a significant international achievement to protect children against violence and abuse together with the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which has been ratified by 173 countries till now.
Nevertheless, involvement of children in armed conflicts around the world by governments and regimes still persist, as exemplified in conflicts such as Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Myanmar, Sudan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Colombia, and Haiti, to name only some. Besides, the crimes against children include abduction, forcible recruitment, rape and sexual violence, and human trafficking, as reported by the UN.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, on December 31st urged for immediate action to implement international laws, to annihilate explosives in inhabited territories, to provide unconstrained humanitarian aid to children, to safeguard schools against military activity and to eradicate anti-personnel landmines.
Emphasizing the urgency of the situation and the necessity that in 2025 the recruitment and use of children in conflicts must come to an end, Gamba called for action: “every moment we delay, another child becomes just another number in the long list of conflict related casualties”.