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Madam President,
Excellencies,
Executive Director of UNICEF, Ms. Catherine Russell,
Civil Society Briefer,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I thank Colombia for convening today’s Security Council Open Debate on children and armed conflict. I am honoured to address the Council in an Open Debate for the first time in my capacity as Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.
I express profound gratitude to my fellow briefers and to United Nations colleagues worldwide who are on the frontlines and risk their lives every day to shield children from the horrors of war, to restore hope amid the darkest circumstances, and to preserve humanity where war erases it.
Their work is indispensable and is often carried out under conditions of extraordinary danger, with diminishing resources, and in some cases against the deliberate obstruction of those who should be enabling protection, not destroying it.
It is regrettable that, at a time when we consistently call for the meaningful participation of children in decisions affecting their lives, a child from one of the situations before us today was ultimately unable to brief the Council, despite appropriate safeguards having been put in place to protect her identity. While her voice will be conveyed through Plan International, this serves as a reminder that we must continue to create safe and practical avenues for children to be heard in the very forums where decisions concerning their future are made.
Madam President,
Eighty years ago, the United Nations was founded on a solemn commitment: to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Today, that promise is failing the very people it was made to protect and as a consequence civilians—and far too often children—continue to bear the brunt of conflict.
As my mandate commemorates its 30th anniversary, Graça Machel’s landmark 1996 study warned that children were no longer merely bystanders to war, but its targets. Thirty years later, that warning remains painfully relevant.
The report of the Secretary-General presented to this Council today is not a wake-up call. After decades of evidence, warnings, and appeals, the international community cannot claim ignorance of what is happening to children in armed conflict. If we are still not awake after all that millions of children have and continue to endure; then we must confront a far more troubling truth: that inaction is not the result of ignorance. It is a conscious political choice.
And that choice is not abstract. It is measured, every single day, in the lives of children.
This report should shake the conscience of this Council, of Member States, and of the international community. It should unsettle complacency, puncture euphemism, and strip away any remaining illusion about the reality children face in armed conflict. This report is not merely a record of violations. It is an indictment of inaction and a call to use the tools already available to protect children.
The United Nations Monitoring and Reporting mechanism verified 38,558 grave violations against children, affecting 24,174 children. The process of verification was undertaken in 2025, thus including violations that have taken place in previous years. This is the highest verified number of children affected by violations in any year since the establishment of the children and armed conflict mandate.
Behind each and every number is a child whose body, mind, family, community, education, and future were assaulted by war.
Let me be clear: children are not collateral damage. They are not bargaining chips. They are not a by-product of strategy. They are not expendable. And yet, conflict after conflict, children are treated as if their lives can be sacrificed in pursuit of military advantage, territorial control, political dominance, financial gain, or outright destruction. This is intolerable.
In 2025, the report shows a major concerning shift. For the first time, Government forces are the main perpetrators of grave violations against children overall, and specifically the killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals and the denial of humanitarian access. That is not a marginal development. That is a profound and deeply troubling shift.
When States become the main violators of the rights of children, this signals a dramatic disregard for international humanitarian and human rights law, and an erosion of the principle that States bears the primary responsibility to protect their populations, including children. This erosion signals a dangerous collapse in our collective humanity; one that future generations will judge us for.
The most prevalent grave violations in 2025 were killing and maiming, with 14,224 children affected, including 6,266 children killed and 7,958 maimed. This was followed by the denial of humanitarian access, with 8,322 incidents, and recruitment and use, with 6,607 children affected. 5,129 children were abducted, and 1,783 children were raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence. 3,176 children were subjected to multiple grave violations. A third of the victims were girls.
The report also identifies where the suffering was most severe. The highest levels of violations in 2025 were verified in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Somalia. In each of these situations, children have borne the brunt of hostilities, civilian infrastructure has been devastated, and the fundamental distinction between combatants or fighters and civilians has been eroded with a devastating human cost.
Madam President,
In 2025, children were killed in their homes, in displacement sites, in schools, and in hospitals, while playing with their friends, in places where they should have been safe. For example, among the incidents verified by the United Nations, on 9 April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza city killed 21 members of the same family, including 12 children while an additional 22 people, including 6 children, were also reported killed. The attack destroyed residential buildings housing families and internally displaced persons.
Across multiple contexts, parties to conflict conducted hostilities in ways that disregarded the fundamental principles of humanity, distinction, proportionality, and precaution, and with despicable brutality and disregard for human life, let alone children’s lives. Airstrikes, artillery and drone strikes, and explosive weapons in general were used in densely populated areas, tearing through civilian infrastructure and exposing children to extreme and predictable harm. Let me be unequivocal: these are not tragic accidents of war. These are the foreseeable and avoidable consequences of political and military strategic choices.
Where these weapons did not kill, they inflicted lifelong injuries and disabilities, robbing children of their health, bodily integrity, and development with lasting consequences throughout their lives.
As a world leader recently remarked, modern military operations do not always require the destruction of entire buildings to neutralise a specific target. Modern capabilities increasingly allow for greater precision. The question is therefore not only what is possible, but what choices are made.
Madam President,
We are also witnessing a dangerous transformation in the way wars are fought.
The growing integration of unmanned systems and artificial intelligence into warfare is transforming the conduct of hostilities. Unless accompanied by meaningful human oversight, these technologies risk increasing harm to children and distancing decision-makers from the human consequences of war.
Technology must not outpace responsibility. The use of advanced military systems does not diminish obligations under international law; it reinforces the need for meaningful human control, transparency, and accountability. Without these safeguards, these technologies increase harm while distancing decision-making from its consequences. No technological advancement can justify a retreat from our duty to protect children in armed conflict.
The denial of humanitarian access and attacks on humanitarian operations and personnel reached deeply concerning levels in 2025, further undermining the protection of children. Parties to the conflict denied or imposed broad restrictions on the delivery of assistance, attacked or obstructed aid convoys, and enforced administrative barriers that impeded principled operations. For example, on 18 February 2025 in Herat, Afghanistan, the de facto Department for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice visited a private hospital and instructed the administrator to stop providing treatment to women who wear makeup, are not attired in a proper hijab, and without a mahram or male guardian. The administrator informed that such denial of access to health services was not possible.
In continuation of the previous year, over 325 humanitarian workers, including United Nations personnel, were killed, while others were detained. This further weakens the ability of relief agencies to reach children at a time of acute and growing need.
Children were left without access to essential services, including healthcare, education, nutrition, protection, gender-based violence programming, and other life-saving support. The obstruction of humanitarian relief reflects a profoundly troubling political choice as it further shows that the suffering of children is consciously ignored in the development and conduct of military strategies.
Let me say this plainly: when aid is blocked, children die. When convoys are attacked or denied movement, children are left hungry. When humanitarian workers are detained or killed, children are left without vaccination, without psychosocial support, without protection, without school, without hope. The international community must use every diplomatic, political, and financial lever available to ensure unimpeded humanitarian access. They need principled, sustained action now.
Sexual violence against children continued to be weaponized as a widespread tactic of war intended to humiliate, terrorize, and displace entire populations. In 2025, the United Nations verified a worrying increase in cases of gang rape perpetrated by parties to conflict, showing a growing use of sexual violence as a tool of control and to normalize violence within armed groups.
For example, on 11 March 2025, in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, three girls, aged 14 to 16, were gang raped by armed group elements while cultivating their land.
Sexual violence is used to terrorise communities, exert control, and destroy lives. Its impacts extend far beyond the immediate victim, leaving lasting scars on families and communities.
The horror of these findings has no end. Grave violations have lifelong implications and reverberate through entire communities and across generations. A child who is maimed may never walk again. A child who is raped may never again feel safe in their own body. A child who is abducted or recruited may be forced to carry the horrors of violence into their adulthood. A child denied education is deprived of opportunities. These grave violations reverberate across families, communities, and generations. This is how war destroys not only present lives, but future peace prospects.
Attacks on schools and hospitals continued at alarming levels, endangering lives in the immediate term, but also having lasting consequences, disrupting learning, denying medical care, depriving children of access to safe spaces, and undermining the resilience and recovery of entire communities.
For example, in the morning of 12 May 2025, a school located in a village in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region, was hit by an airstrike while classes were in session, resulting in at least 19 children killed, and 88 children from kindergarten to 12th grade injured. Two teachers were also killed. Such incidents underscore the devastating human toll when civilian infrastructure is impacted by hostilities. Schools and hospitals were damaged, destroyed, or rendered unusable. They were further occupied for military use, exposing children to additional harm.
Madam President,
The facts presented to you today demand absolute clarity. Our report verified over 38,000 grave violations against children. These violations did not occur in a vacuum. The majority were the result of deliberate choices by State actors who, in planning and conducting military operations, failed to give any weight to child casualties or to the suffering inflicted on children.
And because these violations stem from conscious decisions, they can be stopped by conscious decisions.
Let me be clear: we do not face a vacuum of international humanitarian law. The rules exist. The principles are clear. What is missing is political will.
Half of the harm inflicted on children in armed conflict today could be avoided if Member States were to act with resolve. That means using every tool at their disposal to ensure that the nine State armed and security forces listed in the annexes to the report change the way they wage war. It means demanding that they integrate child protection into military planning, comply with international humanitarian law, and engage fully and constructively with my Office.
It also means no backsliding: no weakening of commitments, no withdrawal from conventions designed to protect children, and no reinterpretation of obligations to suit operational convenience. The protection of children is not optional.
Madam President,
Responsibility rests in the collective hands of this Council and of the wider United Nations membership. Each one of you, as champions for children and armed conflict, must lead by example. Through your leadership, commitment, and action, meaningful change is possible.
Importantly, this report shows that action can protect children. Action grounded in the belief that children have rights, and are entitled to special protection. Action based on concrete and practical engagement with Governments and parties to the conflict to enhance child protection.
In 2025, 13,112 children formerly associated with armed forces or armed groups received protection or reintegration support. Parties to conflict made around 40 commitments, including through handover protocols, capacity-building initiatives, unilateral commitments, and other forms of engagement with the United Nations. My Office is currently negotiating action plans with listed parties, including in Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, and the Syrian Arab Republic.
While I join the Secretary-General in welcoming these advances, I urgently call on parties to make concrete progress in signing these action plans. Children cannot wait. Where there is political will, there is a path to release, reintegration, accountability, and prevention.
Madam President,
The way forward is clear.
First, all parties to conflict must immediately cease all grave violations against children and fully comply with the Geneva Conventions of 1949, their additional protocols, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, its optional protocols, and the principles of international law, including customary international law.
Second, all parties must guarantee safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access and protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, and essential services.
Third, perpetrators must be held accountable, whether through national justice systems or in cooperation with international mechanisms.
Fourth, all children associated with armed forces and armed groups must be treated first and foremost as victims, with deprivation of liberty applied only as a measure of last resort, for the shortest possible time, and always in line with international juvenile justice standards.
Fifth, reintegration programmes must be adequately funded and provide age-appropriate, gender-responsive, trauma-informed, and disability-inclusive support. Reintegration is not only a humanitarian imperative; it is an investment in sustainable peace.
Sixth, child protection must be integrated across all peace, political and security processes, from mediation to transitional justice, from disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration to security sector reform, from humanitarian response to post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding.
In this context, we must ensure that as United Nations peace operations transition or draw down, child protection frameworks are preserved and handed over responsibly, in line with Security Council resolution 2764. The protection of children must endure beyond the presence of peace operations, serving as a lasting legacy of our engagement and a foundation for long-term stability.
The Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism also requires sustained capacities and dedicated financial support through predictable, flexible, and multi-year funding. Child protection requires clear political commitment and intent, sustained financial commitment, and sustained moral clarity. This is even more urgent in the context of persistent efforts to undermine independent human rights monitoring, alongside attacks against community and civic leaders, human rights defenders, and monitors documenting violations against children.
This risks weakening the very systems established by this Council to monitor and respond to grave violations, as well as to support Member States with information to strengthen national child protection systems. I call on all stakeholders to facilitate monitoring and reporting by the United Nations.
The continued engagement of regional and subregional organizations remains vital, and a priority to me. I warmly congratulate Ambassador Jainaba Jagne, on her recent historic appointment as African Union Special Envoy for Children and Armed Conflict, and to commend her leadership and dedication to strengthening the protection of children and ensuring that their rights remain central to regional peace and security efforts. I am pleased that thanks to the immediate and active cooperation between our two offices, she is here today to deliver the AU statement. Equally important is the mobilization of political commitment through initiatives such as the Prove It Matters campaign that my Office launched last year. Campaigns raise awareness on child rights and essential issues, and reaffirm international obligations.
Madam President,
Thirty years after the creation of the children and armed conflict mandate, the world faces a reckoning and must answer for its inaction.
Children are asking us for our reliability, for a guarantee of their rights, for safety and for protection. They are asking us for accountability. They are asking us to stop the violence, to open the roads for humanitarian aid, to end the recruitment, to end the rape, to end the abductions, to end the bombing of homes, schools, and hospitals, to protect and re-open their schools and to restore humanity to places where war has erased it.
We must answer to these children with decisive action.
Championship of children and armed conflict demands action. It requires leadership by example. It requires consistency, credibility, and the courage to act when it matters most.
The United Nations and my Office remain committed to protecting children and upholding their rights.
Before I conclude, allow me to bring into this Council the voice of a child that reflects the hopes, frustrations, and expectations of millions of children affected by armed conflict, shared through my Office’s “Prove It Matters” campaign:
"Dear World Leaders, I wish that you can open your eyes and see what is happening in the world. What is happening to the children in the world. If you really want to help, you don’t need to just talk, you also need to take action."
Let us renew the global consensus on child protection and uphold every child’s fundamental rights: to life, health, education, dignity, and a future free from fear.
May I remind you of a statement made by the Liberian Foreign Minister in this very chamber a few months ago, where she reminded us that “children are suffering the devastating consequences of our decisions”.
Madam President,
Let us choose action over indifference.
Let us choose courage over complacency.
Let us choose protection over neglect.
Let us prove that children matter.
Let us use the tools available to demand better child protection in conflict settings so that when we meet again this time next year, we can discuss how children are thriving because of the consequences of our principled decisions.
And let history show that when children needed us most, we did not look away.
Thank you.