According to UNICEF in a report published in 2011, more than 60 per cent of the LTTE's fighting cadre from 1983 to 2002 consisted of boys and girls less than 18 years of age. UNICEF recorded more than 5,700 cases of child recruitment by the LTTE from 2003 to 2009. Human Rights Watch has suggested a figure of more than 21,000. Following the tsunami, orphaned children were harvested for combat purposes.
It is also important to mainstream child protection into peacekeeping and special political missions through the predeployment training of troops. I cannot stress enough in this regard the importance of knowing that the Security Council stands behind this. We owe it to the children affected by armed conflict and to the dedicated men and women putting their own lives at risk to ensure that the voices of these children reach our ears.
In Syria, despite all the efforts of various actors, armed violation has intensified. The killing and maiming of children and attacks on schools and hospitals continue unabated. Children are recruited and used by various armed groups, and are often lured into battle, where they are among the first to die. Reports of organized sexual violence as a tactic of humiliation persist.
My country welcomes the recent developments in the Security Council discussions on children and armed conflict, such as the focus on sexual violence, in particular on justice and accountability, the increased attention to the issues of child protection when setting up or renewing United Nations mission mandates and the attention of children in fast-changing situations on the Security Council agenda.
Fifteen years have passed since the Security Council adopted resolution 1261 (1999), its first thematic resolution on the plight of children in armed conflict. By means of that resolution, the international community sent a clear signal: the suffering of children in armed conflict is unacceptable, whether they be child soldiers, sex slaves, victims in schools and hospitals or affected in any way.
We believe that the “Children, not soldiers” campaign, launched yesterday to end the recruitment and use of children in Government armed forces by 2016, is an important step in the right direction. We believe that openness with respect to that issue will not only lead to tangible results to prevent the recruitment by Government armed forces, but also set an example to be followed forthwith by many armed groups.
The report of Mr. Emmerson, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, prepared for the twenty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, cites 37 cases in which unmanned aircraft have carried out attacks leading to civilian casualties.
Last year's thematic report provided by Ms. Zerrougui to the Security Council (S/2013/245) cites specific information on the use of drones in Pakistan that have killed or wounded children. Information is available on reports of child victims of United States air strikes in Yemen.
The regime's security and military forces do not spare children from arrest, arbitrary detention, ill treatment and fatal torture. The violations perpertrated by the regime include the use of children as human shields, sexual and physical violence, and massacres of civilians, including babies.
