[OPEN LETTER] ARMED CONFLICT: ALL PERPETRATORS OF GRAVE CHILD RIGHTS VIOLATIONS MUST BE LISTED BY THE UNITED NATIONS

31 May 2023

The International Bureau for Children’s Rights joins 20 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in an open letter calling on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to publish a complete and accurate list of perpetrators of grave violations of children’s rights in armed conflict in its report’s annexes.

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Every year, the UN Secretary General publishes a report on the situation of children in armed conflict. The annex to this report lists all parties involved in current conflicts who have been identified as having committed serious violations of children’s rights. According to the United Nations’ own criteria, this list should reflect the data collected and verified in the areas in question by the UN’s monitoring and reporting mechanism (find out more here).

However, for years we have observed that not only do not all parties responsible for grave violations appear on this list, but some are also removed without meeting the necessary conditions, namely that “there is UN-verified information that it has ceased all grave violations against children for which it is listed […] for a period of at least one reporting cycle” (criterion set out in the 2010 Annual Report, A/64/742-S/2010/181, para 178).

In this letter, we ask the Secretary-General again to ensure that all parties to conflict responsible for committing grave violations against children are listed in the annexes, in accordance with the criteria set out in the 2010 Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict.

READ THE COMPLETE LETTER

List of signatories:

Amnesty International
CARE International
Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC)
Child Rights International Network (CRIN)
ChildFund Alliance
Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security,
Defence for Children International
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Global Justice Center
Human Rights Watch
International Bureau for Children’s Rights (IBCR)
Legal Action Network (LAW)
Nonviolent Peaceforce
Norwegian Refugee Council
Plan International
Save the Children
Terre des Hommes International Federation
War Child
Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict
World Federalist Movement / Institute for Global Policy
World Vision International

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