Tangible progress made in helping children affected by armed conflict: UN envoy
11 October -- The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, said today that over the past three years, important and tangible progress had been made in the agenda for the protection of children affected by armed conflict.
Addressing the General Assembly's Third Committee which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural issues, Mr. Otunnu pointed out that the Security Council had formally affirmed that the fate of such children belonged legitimately on its agenda. Similarly, in the space of a few years, major regional organizations had come to embrace the issue as part of their own agendas. In addition, a number of governments had made the protection of children affected by armed conflict a prominent feature of their domestic and international policies.
In a very significant development, Mr. Otunnu stressed, the Security Council had agreed to incorporate the protection of children into peacekeeping mandates. The establishment of child-protection advisers in United Nations peacekeeping operations was an important innovation. Child-protection sections had now become an established feature of regular reports to the Council, on specific conflict situations as well as on thematic concerns.
In addition, important advocacy work had focused on making the needs of children a central concern in policy making, priority setting and resource allocation in post-conflict situations. That had started to bear fruit, as could be seen in East Timor, Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Guatemala, said Mr. Otunnu, who had submitted his annual progress report to the Third Committee. The Committee had also before it the report of Secretary-General on children and armed conflict.
Outlining the challenges ahead, Mr. Otunnu proposed that emphasis must be placed on follow-up to the progress made in order to deepen the gains, and to ensure that emerging trends became fully embedded practices.
Among the areas of concern, he pointed to monitoring and controlling illicit trade in natural resources that fuelled conflicts; providing training for peacekeeping personnel; developing a research agenda to help fill knowledge gaps; and reaching out to and involving young people in the movement for the protection of children affected by armed conflict. Mr. Otunnu also said that the international community needed to mobilize to address the special needs of girls affected by armed conflict, internally displaced children, the liberation of abducted children, the impact of sanctions on children and the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS in the corridors of armed conflict.
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