The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) confirmed that the United Nations has verified 315,000 grave violations committed by parties to the conflict against children in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America.
Unicef said that in conjunction with the launch of the Oslo Conference on Protection Children in Armed Conflict and the meeting of States, donors and the humanitarian community in Norway, to uphold international law, hold perpetrators accountable and provide the necessary funds for the protection of children at risk.
According to the UN organisation, at least 120,000 children were killed or maimed by wars around the world between 2005 and 2022, an average of almost 20 a day, and warned that the true number of grave violations, which also included recruitment, kidnapping and violence, was likely to be much higher.
The UN also verified more than 16,000 attacks on schools and hospitals over the same period, and more than 22,000 cases in which children were denied access to humanitarian assistance.
Unicef indicated that millions of other children had been displaced from their homes and communities, lost their friends or families or separated from their parents or caregivers.
"While we know what must be done to protect children from war, the world is not doing enough" Unicef Executive Director Catherine Russell said, stressing the need to ensure that children "do not pay the price for the wars of adults" as the United Nations continued to document the tragic and foreseeable violations against them.
She added that "Any war is ultimately a war on children," and calls for bold and concrete action to improve the protection of the world's most vulnerable children.
A new report revealed that by 2024,the child protection sector will require US$1.05 billion, increasing to US$1.37 billion by 2026, to address the protection needs of children in armed conflict.
This includes important services such as family reunification, mental health support and prevention of recruitment into armed groups.
However, the report also indicates an impending funding shortfall. If the current pace of humanitarian funding continues, the projected shortfall would stand at US$835 million in 2024, growing to US$1 billion by 2026.
As leaders meet in Oslo, Unicef called on Governments to make bold new commitments to uphold and operationalize the international laws and norms already in place to protect children in war, to stop the recruitment and use of children by armed groups and forces, to stop the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.
It also called for holding perpetrators accountable when children's rights were violated, and for stepping up critical resources to fund the protection of children in conflict at the scale and speed required.
The Oslo Conference on Protection Children in Armed Conflict will be held from June 5 to 6, co-organised by Unicef, the Government of Norway, Save the Children organization and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), in collaboration with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the African Union, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict and the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.
