Conflict: Children and Armed Conflict - Security Council Report

Source: Security Council Report
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This is Security Council Report’s fifth Cross-Cutting Report on Children and Armed Conflict analysing statistical information on children and armed conflict in country-specific decisions of the Security Council and trends in 2011 and early 2012. The report examines relevant data in the 2011 resolutions, presidential statements, Council missions and Secretary-General’s reports as well as peace agreements and peacekeeping mandates and tries to assess the degree to which the thematic issue of children and armed conflict has been addressed and reflected in the mainstream of the Council’s overall work on country-specific situations. The report also looks at the impact of the activities of the Working Group on children and armed conflict and the Office of the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict on this issue.

After several years of largely positive developments and progress, in 2011 the protection of children in armed conflict agenda faced a number of challenges. Although it was possible for the Security Council to adopt resolution 1998, expanding the criteria for inclusion in the Secretary-General’s annexes to include attacks on schools and hospitals, the repercussions from the differences that emerged during the negotiations are still being felt into 2012.

In 2011 resolution 1973 on Libya set off a series of reactions that significantly affected Council dynamics in most areas of its work. Our findings indicate that while this may not have affected the children and armed conflict agenda substantively, it could have led to a more cautious approach to the issue in order not to roll-back progress made in the past. In addition, the apparent reduced attention to thematic issues among several Council members, either due to other priorities or the belief that these issues are best addressed in the General Assembly, may have led to a lessening of political will to advance this issue. As a result the picture in 2011 and early 2012 is a mixed one for the children and armed conflict agenda.
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