A newly released United Nations report has found that the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic aggravated the existing vulnerabilities of children. The socioeconomic impact of the pandemic exposed these children to grave violations, notably recruitment and use, abduction and sexual violence.
The ‘Children and Armed Conflicts’ report includes trends regarding the impact of armed conflict on children and information on violations committed.
“In 2020, the situation of children in armed conflict was marked by a sustained high number of grave violations. The United Nations verified 26,425 grave violations, of which 23,946 were committed in 2020 and 2,479 were committed earlier but verified only in 2020. Violations affected 19,379 children (14,097 boys, 4,993 girls, 289 sex unknown) in 21 situations. The highest numbers of violations were the recruitment and use of 8,521 children, followed by the killing (2,674) and maiming (5,748) of 8,422 children and 4,156 incidents of denial of humanitarian access,” United Nations’s Children and armed conflict report said.
According to this report, the highest numbers of grave violations were verified in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen.