UNICEF urges ending of violations against children in conflict areas

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The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on Thursday called on all parties to conflict to abide by their obligations under international law and immediately end violations and attacks against children.

"Children are being targeted and exposed to attacks and brutal violence in their homes, schools and playgrounds," said Manuel Fontaine, the director of Emergency Programmes at UNICEF, in a news release.

"As these attacks continue year after year, we cannot become numb. Such brutality cannot be the new normal."

According to UNICEF, children have become frontline targets, used as human shields, killed, maimed and recruited to fight in conflicts around the world.

A boy holds a large piece of exploded artillery shell, which landed in the village of Al Mahjar, a suburb of Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. /UNICEF Photo

Sexual violence, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement have become "standard tactics," in conflicts from Iraq, Syria and Yemen, to Nigeria, South Sudan and Myanmar, said the UN agency.

In addition to the physical trauma children have had to suffer, far too many children have been subjected to the psychosocial trauma in having to witnesses shocking and widespread violence.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced and many children have died as a result of lack of health care, medicines or access to food and water, because these services were damaged or destroyed in fighting.

In some contexts, children abducted by extremist groups experience abuse yet again upon release when they are detained by security forces, added UNICEF.

UNICEF also called on all states with influence over parties to conflict "to use that influence to protect children."

Source(s): Xinhua News Agency