Can the powerful protect? How the UN Security Council needs to shape up to protect children

Transcription

1 Can the powerful protect? How the UN Security Council needs to shape up to protect children

2 Can the powerful protect? How the UN Security Council needs to shape up to protect children Anna Jefferys

3 The International Save the Children Alliance is the world s leading independent children s rights organisation, with members in 29 countries and operational programmes in more than 100.We fight for children s rights and deliver lasting improvements to children s lives worldwide. This report was written by Anna Jefferys, Humanitarian Advocacy Adviser with Save the Children UK. Published on behalf of the International Save the Children Alliance by Save the Children UK 1 St John s Lane London EC1M 4AR UK Registered Charity No First published 2007 International Save the Children Alliance 2007 This publication is copyright, but may be reproduced by any method without fee or prior permission for teaching purposes, but not for resale. For copying in any other circumstances, prior written permission must be obtained from the publisher, and a fee may be payable. Typeset by Grasshopper Design Company

4 Contents Abbreviations and acronyms iii 1 Executive summary 1 2 Introduction Methods of research 3 3 A good start: child protection on the UN agenda Increased awareness of the need for protection of children Protection of all civilians rising up the agenda 4 4 Focusing on the protection of children From humanitarianism to peace and security Stronger Security Council resolutions Stronger Secretary-General thematic reports Uneven treatment of children across different countries Peacekeeping mandates still erratic Over-emphasis on child soldiers Reintegration after DDR needs strengthening Involvement of civil society Promoting system-wide coherence 16 5 Practical measures to address children and armed conflict Development of a toolkit on children in armed conflict 17 6 Progress in policy and practice but still a long way to go Stigmatisation of parties who recruit: are the annexes working? Legal framework on children International peace agreements Blinkered approach to DDR Deployment of child protection advisers (CPAs) to peacekeeping operations or missions 19 7 Conclusions 20 8 Recommendations 22 Endnotes 23 Appendix 1: Child-focused language in Security Council resolutions relating to the protection of civilians 24 Appendix 2: Themes covered in Security Council resolutions relating to children in armed conflict Appendix 3: Security Council Resolution 1674 Language used 27 Appendix 4: Text relating to protection of children in recent peace agreements 28

5 Abbreviations and acronyms CPA DDR DDRR DPA DPKO DPSS DRC ECOWAS FARDC HRC IASC ICC IDD MINUSTAH MONUC MRM NGO OCHA OHCHR OSRSG/CAC R2P RC SC SCR SRSG UN UNICEF UNCRC UNDEF UNHCR UNMEE UNMIL UNMIS UNOB UNOCI UPC Child protection adviser Disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation Disarmament, demobilisation, rehabilitation and reintegration Department of Political Affairs Department of Peacekeeping Operations Displacement and Protection Support Section Democratic Republic of Congo Economic Community of West African States Forces Armees de la Republic de Congo Human Rights Council Inter-Agency Standing Committee International Criminal Court International Displacement Division UN Stabilisation Mission in Haiti UN Mission in the DRC Monitoring and reporting mechanism Non-governmental organisation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Office for the High Commissioner for Human Rights Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Responsibility to protect Resident Coordinator Security Council Security Council resolution Special Representative of the Secretary-General United Nations UN Children s Fund UN Convention on the Rights of the Child UN Democracy Fund UN High Commissioner for Refugees UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea UN Mission in Liberia UN Mission in Sudan UN Operation in Burundi UN Operation in Cote d Ivoire Union of Congolese Patriots

6 I Executive summary Children stand at the epicentre of vulnerability and instability in situations of conflict. In the last decade alone, two million children have been killed and six million injured by armed conflict. 1 During conflict they suffer numerous other abuses of their rights, including recruitment into armed forces, displacement from their homes, exposure to violence, sexual abuse, exploitation, forced labour, early marriage, separation from school and separation from their families. Belligerents also use them as pawns, or even weapons of war. Despite its flaws, the United Nations (UN) Security Council is the only truly global decision-making forum with the power and means to enshrine the protection of children into internationally accepted and enforceable doctrine. The founders of the UN made an explicit aim to protect succeeding generations from the scourge of war. As such, a focus on the protection of children in conflict should be central to the Security Council s work. In this study we set out to examine how far the Security Council has come in acknowledging children s special status. We have studied Security Council resolutions (SCRs), formal statements and reports that call for measures to protect children, and analysed how these translate into changes on the ground through case studies of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Liberia. The study is limited in its scope; we focus specifically on the overall UN Security Council reporting structure and where children fit into this. This report forms the first part of a broader series that sets out to ascertain how effectively a number of influential actors in the humanitarian world address the challenges of protection and assistance of children in crisis. Over the last decade, the Security Council has started to take account of the role of children in conflict, recognising that from a peace and security standpoint, it should come more to the fore. But there are severe limits on the extent to which reports and agreements on paper can be translated into effective actions on the ground. For instance, despite the fact that SCRs now regularly call for disarmament activities to include children, the peacekeeping troops tasked with disarmament do not necessarily translate these calls into action. This is partly because the UN s operational arms still do not conduct activities in a child-focused manner, and they do not always understand how to do so. Our conclusion is that a sharper focus on children at the reporting level has not been accompanied by stronger actions or well-defined priorities on the ground. This will only change if complemented by ongoing advocacy by policy-makers and practitioners at all levels of the UN system. In order to translate progress on paper into real change, Save the Children recommends that: a stronger UN-wide framework on protection of children be established incorporating political, human rights and humanitarian components the Security Council emphasises all of the six egregious violations against children, detailed in UN SCR 1612, rather than narrowly focusing on the recruitment of children into armed forces the UN Security Council expands the SCR 1612 monitoring and reporting system to address all countries affected by armed conflict where children s rights are violated. 1

7 2 Introduction How prominently does the protection of children feature on the UN Security Council agenda? Does this lead to adequate protection responses on the ground? In the last decade, two million children have been killed and six million injured by armed conflict. Ninety per cent of global conflict-related deaths since 1990 have been civilian deaths, and approximately one-third of these have been children. 2 Children are not just affected by the humanitarian impact of conflicts but are often actively involved in fighting themselves, whether voluntarily or through coercion. Some 300,000 children continue to be associated with armed forces in conflicts across the globe, from northern Uganda to Myanmar, and 40 per cent of these are girls. The UN approach to conflict and post-conflict rehabilitation must address children s roles and rights in conflict if they are to come up with appropriate child protection responses. The UN Security Council is the only global multilateral decision-making body with a mandate to address global peace and security. It has the power to mobilise tremendous resources to investigate disputes, determine threats to peace and take military action and other measures against acts of aggression. Its resolutions (87 passed in 2006 alone) have led to the deployment of 96,000 peacekeeping troops currently on missions across the world, with a budget of $5 billion in Troop numbers could reach 140,000 by the end of 2007, according to the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO). The Security Council remains the preserve of the powerful, and individual countries will go to great lengths to prevent their issues coming onto its agenda. Protecting civilians from conflict and violence is at the core of the Security Council s mandate. However, the UN was originally set up to provide protection for a very different world, in which inter-state, not intra-state conflict was the norm, and missions were far less robust. Many recognise that the structure of the UN is ill-suited to meeting today s child protection needs. Protection particularly child protection in, for example, peacekeeping mandates, still risks being ill-defined. This can set missions up to fail when it comes to protecting children. The UN Security Council is independent of government officials and other UN bodies but it does not stand alone. It interacts with human rights, humanitarian affairs, peace and security, and political bodies across the UN system. This interaction takes the form of briefings delivered to the Council when representatives from the humanitarian and human rights UN agencies return from missions, among other means. As such, the decisions of the Council are influenced by actors across the UN system. As an example, the Security Council recently put the Lord s Resistance Army conflict in Uganda on its agenda following a rise in awareness of this conflict s regional dimension, based on information presented to it. Meanwhile, at the time of writing, UN agencies and member states are in the midst of reforming the UN s political, protection and humanitarian structures. Reform measures currently underway involve: the humanitarian system (through the introduction of the UN-led clusters, among other initiatives); human rights institutions (by dissolving the Commission on Human Rights and creating a Human Rights Council); post-conflict peacebuilding work (by introducing a Peacebuilding Commission, or PBC); and the structure of the Security Council itself (thus far there has been little progress here, but discussion has centred on expanding the Council s membership). There is also movement across the UN to clarify and define its mandate to protect civilians and the kinds of reforms needed to do so. This report focuses solely on the role of the Security Council within the wider UN architecture. 2

8 2 INTRODUCTION 2.1 Methods of research Save the Children s analysis incorporated interviews across a number of UN agencies, including OCHA, the DPKO, the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG/CAC), the UN children s fund (UNICEF), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). We also interviewed representatives from Security Council member states, including two of the five permanent members (the UK and France), and one non-permanent member (Slovakia). On the reporting side, we researched different Security Council reporting mechanisms and outputs, including resolutions, Secretary-General reports, presidential statements, mission reports, OSRSG/CAC reports to the General Assembly, and peacekeeping and peace support mission mandates. Finally, we carried out a review of relevant reports on the UN s role in the protection of children. Our study of the reporting was quantitative rather than qualitative, and didn t analyse the situation on the ground. But it allowed us to gather evidence that enables us to draw a strong picture of how the Security Council protects children on the ground. 3

9 3 A good start: child protection on the UN agenda 3.1 Increased awareness of the need for protection of children Over the last decade, there has been a significant increase in awareness (both across UN agencies and among UN member states) of the need to protect children caught up in violence and insecurity. This has led to specific shifts in the way children s issues impact the Security Council s peace and security agenda. Children s issues have gained prominence in two ways: by featuring more centrally in Security Council reports and resolutions (the mainstreaming approach) and through the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM), as outlined in SCR 1612 (the focused approach). The latter included a commitment to set up a Security Council working group on children and armed conflict, which reports on and takes action against perpetrators of grave violations against children. No other theme on the Security Council s agenda has a working group set up to address it. The UN lens first pointed to children in 1990 when the UN conducted a World Summit on children. This was followed in 1993 by the appointment of Graça Machel to undertake an independent study on the impact of armed conflict on children. The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG/CAC) was set up in 1997 on the back of a General Assembly resolution, tasked with producing an annual report to the Secretary-General and the Security Council on the situation for children in armed conflict. The Security Council first became actively seized of the issue in 1999, 3 with the passing of SCR 1261, the first such resolution to address the issue of children in armed conflict. Resolutions on children and armed conflict have been adopted regularly ever since, with increasingly clearer language and stronger demands. However, the degree to which children s issues have been mainstreamed across the wider Security Council reporting and decision-making agenda varies dramatically. An analysis of the written documentation produced by the Security Council shows there has been more progress made in background reports (such as the Secretary-General s reports) than in country-specific statements and resolutions. The resolutions are more closely linked to actions taken by the UN on the ground. The extent to which these resolutions are child-focused or adequately address the issue of children affected by armed conflict is summarised below. 3.2 Protection of all civilians rising up the agenda The increased prominence of children s issues across the Security Council is taking place alongside greater awareness of the need to protect all civilians. The Council has increasingly adopted the idea that protection both political and physical and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. This is reflected in the passing of three Security Council resolutions addressing protection of civilians: 1265 (1999), 1296 (2000) and 1674 (2006), which also explicitly refer to women and children. (See Appendix 1 for a summary of the issues covered in the major Security Council resolutions on the protection of civilians.) Since the late 1990s, the links between protection of civilians and threats to peace and security have been forged. There has been increasing recognition that the 4

10 3 A GOOD START: CHILD PROTECTION ON THE UN AGENDA Reporting structure to and from the UN Security Council Security Council mission visits may also take place and they will issue their own mission reports.* The head of the UN country team will assign responsibility for follow-up activities from these reports to the relevant UN agencies and will develop an agenda for action. A Security Council member can request a briefing from NGOs on a thematic issue or country situation prior to a Council debate through the Arria formula (see page 15).There is usually an annual Arria on children in armed conflict, which is used to focus Security Council members on issues before a debate. Presidential statements may be suggested by a Security Council member.these can outline country-specific or thematic concerns, but a Presidential Statement does not have the same weight as a resolution. The head of the UN country team (Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) or Resident Coordinator (RC) issues a country report based on guidance that has been provided by different UN agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on the ground. The country report is turned into a briefing or SC report to the UN Security Council members (the permanent five and elected ten). The Secretary-General produces an annual report on children in armed conflict, generated by the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary- General on children and armed conflict. UN Security Council members decide whether or not to become or remain seized of the issue and translate it into a Security Council resolution (SCR). If turned into a resolution and this authorises a peacekeeping force, the head of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) will translate the SCR into a peacekeeping mandate. If children are addressed in the SCR, the DPKO, with the help of the OSRSG/CAC and UNICEF, will hire child protection advisers as part of that peacekeeping operation, where appropriate. In 2001 the SRSG/CAC convened the Taskforce on children and armed conflict (CAC) at country and HQ levels. Principals of UN bodies are on it, including UNICEF, DPKO, DPA, OHCHR, OCHA, the UN Democracy Fund (UNDEF) and others (but no NGOs). In the field it gathers, vets and integrates information on children and turns this into reports on the six egregious violations against children.these reports are sent to the Resident Coordinator/ Humanitarian Coordinator and eventually up to the Secretary-General. At HQ the Steering Committee of the Taskforce (chaired by the SRSG/CAC with DPKO, OCHA, UNHCR and others), meets monthly to discuss progress against the monitoring and reporting mechanism.the chair meets with NGOs to elicit their views every two months. The General Assembly passes an annual omnibus resolution on the rights of the child. * These mission visits have taken place recently in Sudan, the DRC and Afghanistan. The force commander of the peacekeeping operation will translate the peacekeeping mandate into an operational strategy. 5

11 CAN THE POWERFUL PROTECT? security and development pillars of the UN system need to be interlinked and mutually reinforcing in order to achieve progress in each. This shift has been influenced in part by more effective and focused advocacy work by civil society groups. This raised awareness across the UN is manifested in a variety of ways. A. The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 1998 to address impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The court has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute the recruitment of children into armed forces, attacks on schools, forcible transfer of children from their national, ethnic, racial or religious groups, the enslavement of children, attacks against children, and intentional starvation as a method of warfare. Thus far, 130 states are party to the Rome Statute of the ICC. B. The Human Rights Council was set up to provide stronger human rights monitoring, replacing the current Human Rights Commission. There is movement underway to ensure that the Council incorporates children when considering countryspecific and thematic human rights concerns. C. Protection of women has been highlighted through the passing of SCR 1325 on women, peace and security, and three subsequent presidential statements, as well as Security Council debates. However, interviewees report that it has been difficult to maintain momentum on implementation of this resolution, resulting in limited progress. D. At the political level, at the September 2005 World Summit, UN member states voted on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle whereby the UN acknowledged a collective responsibility to use diplomatic, humanitarian and other means to protect populations from war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. SCR 1674 was an attempt to codify R2P, though many assert that its language needs to be strengthened if states are to be held to account. E. On the humanitarian side, UNICEF has shifted its focus to child protection. The recent UN-wide humanitarian reform programme has led to UNHCR being appointed the head of the protection cluster, with UNICEF leading the child protection sub-focus area within the cluster. F. The Internal Displacement Division (IDD) was set up within OCHA to provide a more coherent protection response to internally displaced persons (IDPs). It has since been disbanded and reformed to become the Displacement and Protection Support Section (DPSS). In 1998, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement were developed, and more recently, UNHCR has officially taken on a role to protect IDPs, where it is able, in addition to refugees in certain crises. However, while the Security Council and individual agencies increasingly pay heed to the notion of protection, there is still no UN system-wide agreement on definition of the term. UNICEF s protection, for instance, is guided by the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), while UNHCR s protection is governed by the 1951 International Refugee Convention. The Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), made up of heads of UN agencies and three NGO consortia, takes an action-oriented view of protection, guided principally by international humanitarian law. And there is no clear Security Council definition of protection that helps observers to monitor progress made. 4 6

12 4 Focusing on the protection of children Security Council members individually and collectively began more explicitly to recognise that children were being used as instruments of war in places such as Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo. 5 Security Council Report 4.1 From humanitarianism to peace and security There has been a significant shift in the Security Council s approach, with children in armed conflict being discussed on the peace and security agenda rather than the humanitarian agenda. This link, first explicitly made in SCR 1261, has been reiterated in subsequent resolutions. This is due to greater awareness of the following issues: a) the potential link between children in conflict and threats to peace and stability b) the potential for massive population displacement to be used as a deliberate strategy of war, as a threat to peace and a catalyst to expand regional conflict c) the growing realisation that unless disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation (DDRR) programmes for children are implemented effectively, then the potential exists for those who were not properly reintegrated to negatively impact future peace and security prospects d) Security Council members individually and collectively began more explicitly to recognise that children were being used as instruments of war in places such as Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo Stronger Security Council resolutions Progress has been made in terms of Security Council resolutions that address child protection both in terms of language and content. At first, resolutions tended only to contain general pronouncements relating to children and armed conflict. SCR 1261 (1999), for instance, gave little explanation of who was specifically required to do what to protect children, other than urging the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG/CAC) to intensify DDR efforts and urging the rights of children to be taken into account in peace agreements. This language was strengthened slightly in SCR 1314 (2000), which placed more emphasis on perpetrators, requesting rather than urging specific parties to take action. SCR 1379, passed in 2001, used even stronger language. It called for children s issues to be explicitly included in country-specific resolutions and to be included as a matter of course in peacekeeping mandates, peace negotiations and peace agreements; and requested that the Secretary-General take children into account in peacekeeping plans. This was the first resolution to introduce the language of monitoring and reporting of violations, calling on peacekeepers to intensify efforts to document violence against children. SCR 1460 (2003) further intensified the DDR language regarding children, focusing on the role of member states. It included a clause on the importance of education in helping children to reintegrate. Resolution 1539 (2004) called on child protection advisers (CPAs) to be included in peacekeeping missions, and requested the Secretary-General to assess the need for CPAs in all peacekeeping mandates. 7

13 CAN THE POWERFUL PROTECT? Structure of the monitoring and reporting mechanism in the Security Council Country task forces are set up in-country, made up of UN agencies, NGOs and civil society groups. These gather, vet and integrate information and provide reports detailing grave violations against children to the SRSG/RC. Every two months two country-level taskforces issue comprehensive reports.the SRSG/RC sends these reports to the OSRSG/CAC s office. UN field teams, with the SRSG and the RC as focal points, follow up, co-ordinate and monitor the above reports. At HQ the steering committee of the Taskforce on children and armed conflict, co-chaired by the OSRSG/CAC and UNICEF (with OCHA, DPKO, UNHCR and OHCHR) meets bi-monthly to review overall progress in monitoring and reporting and the reports from the country-level taskforces.the OSRSG meets informally with NGOs every two months for their input.the report on egregious violations against children in situations of armed conflict becomes an informal information report from the Secretary-General. All information is consolidated into an official report from the Secretary-General and is published as a Security Council document. This report will be presented to the Security Council working group on children and armed conflict, which is made up of all Council members and has a chair.the chair of the working group on children and armed conflict presents the recommendations for action to the Security Council for formal endorsement. It will also consider any recommendations for action to be taken at their next meeting. The 2005 resolution on children in armed conflict, SCR 1612, shines the spotlight on monitoring and reporting activities, outlining a monitoring and reporting structure for six egregious violations against children. These include: killing or maiming of children; recruiting or using child soldiers; attacks against schools or hospitals; rape or other grave sexual offences against children; the abduction of children; and denial of humanitarian access for children. SCR 1612: a landmark resolution In 2005, the Secretary-General s report on children and armed conflict formed the basis of SCR This was the first resolution to include a special provision to monitor and report violations committed by both individuals and parties to a conflict. The report specifically named and shamed offending parties who were still implicated in recruiting children into their armed forces. These parties were included in two annexes: the first outlined parties in states that were on the Security Council s agenda (Burundi, the DRC, Côte d Ivoire, Somalia and Sudan); and the second listed those that were not (Colombia, Myanmar (Burma), Nepal, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Uganda). Parties on the Security Council agenda were obligated to work out an action plan to end violations. It is up to the Security Council to take the appropriate steps where progress is not made. SCR 1612 is also the first and only resolution to set up a working group to implement it. The Security Council working group on children and armed conflict has the commitment of Security Council members at the highest levels. It reviews progress against action plans undertaken by the parties to a conflict. It links directly with the OSRSG/CAC at headquarter level, as well as monitoring and reporting task forces at country level, to collect and report on violations against children directly to the Council. 8

14 4 FOCUSING ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN SCR 1612 is a landmark resolution in that it commits the Council at a high level to hold parties to a conflict responsible for addressing violations against children. It is a practical mechanism with a practical action plan and onward application possibilities. However, the working group is still only as effective as its members. Robustly led by its first chair, France, the working group has been strong thus far. But its impact cannot be allowed to be weakened by less committed chairs in the future. Meanwhile, some Security Council members to a large degree want it to be disbanded altogether. Furthermore, the success of the monitoring and reporting mechanism relies on civil society partners in each country, who are often under-briefed and in many cases have inadequate capacity to report properly. 4.3 Stronger Secretary-General thematic reports The thematic reports on children and armed conflict by the Secretary-General (SG) have become more targeted and specific. In 2002, the SG s report contained only a couple of sentences on countryspecific situations, while going into more depth on progress against child protection by regional bodies such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It was the first report to prepare a list of parties to armed conflict that use children in violation of international obligations. The 2003 report is more detailed, monitoring progress against violations, including abductions, sexual- and gender-based violence, killing and maiming, the illicit exploitation of natural resources, and the trafficking of small arms, as a follow-up to SCR It goes into much more detail on parties to conflict who use children, laying out the foundation for the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM), outlining the different roles across the UN and calling on an era of application to begin. It also introduces the role of civil society in the protection agenda. The 2005 SG s report gives detailed assessments of progress against parties to the conflict listed, for countries on and off the Security Council agenda. It outlines an MRM action plan, listing the six violations to be checked against (see page 8). It also lays out the standards that form the basis for monitoring and compiling information at country level, and describes how reports will be prepared, and where this information should be used. More detailed progress made by listed MRM countries and individual country action plans were outlined in Uneven treatment of children across different countries While some progress has been made on child protection resolutions, there has been less progress when it comes to country-specific SCRs. Despite SG reports highlighting the need to address children in all country-specific SCRs, this does not happen across the board. In 2004, the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict analysed the figures for the previous three years: Of more than 80 countryspecific resolutions passed since the adoption of the resolutions on children and armed conflict, less than ten include any reference to children, and these relate to three countries, Sierra Leone, the Congo and Angola. 7 Since then, the number of instances has improved, but inconsistently. In 2006, children were mentioned with the least frequency, with just 5 per cent (or two out of 43) of the 2006 resolutions mentioning children, and ten resolutions (just under a quarter) mentioning protection. See the figure on page 10 for details of recent years. Meanwhile, awareness of child protection has slowly seeped up through the system to affect other Security Council reporting mechanisms. These include country-specific Secretary-General reports, letters from the Secretary-General to the Security Council, and presidential statements. While a quantitative analysis of these documents does not give the whole picture, it does shed light on the extent to which children s protection is viewed systematically in the Council. A focus on children in the Secretary-General s reports is particularly important, since these lead to increased attention in the Security Council resolutions that follow. 9

15 CAN THE POWERFUL PROTECT? Mentions of children and protection in Security Council resolutions % 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% % 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Mention children or protection Don t mention children or protection Mentions both Mentions protection Mentions children Despite Security Council resolutions calling for all Secretary-General country-specific reports to include a section on child protection, of the 70 reports produced from January 2001 onwards, just 20 do so (according to the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict in 2001). And just 13 of these contained designated child protection sections. Those that failed to do so include Liberia, the Middle East, Ethiopia- Eritrea and Somalia, despite the well-documented impact of conflict on children in these countries. 8 Since 2001, there has been a marked shift in certain crisis reports. This is clear when studying the DRC, Sudan and Liberia reports. In 2004, 11 of the 15 Secretary-General reports relating to these countries address children s issues, and 13 out of the 15 discuss protection concerns. In 2005, out of 27 reports, 22 mention children and all but one mention protection. Finally, in 2006, out of a total of 52 Secretary-General reports thus far, 43 mention children and 44 mention protection. 9 Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) case study The question now looms: will all of this Security Council pressure amount to stronger child-focused action, or just more rhetoric? In 2006, the DRC became the first country to receive a Secretary-General report on the SCR 1460 six violations. The potency of its recommendations for action will be held up as a benchmark for the quality and strength of future country reports. Prior to this, Secretary-General reports named forces involved in the fighting in the DRC, but only after 2001 were specific groups named and shamed in conjunction with human rights violations and the recruitment of child soldiers. In the lead-up to this report, the UN country team and OSRSG/CAC worked to bring human rights issues to the forefront of the Security Council agenda through its preceding reports to the Security Council. The Security Council working group on children and armed conflict hosted a series of meetings to discuss continued on page 11 10

16 4 FOCUSING ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) case study continued this report. Negotiations around its development were deemed positive, partly because of the participation of the government of the DRC. The report s language divides violations into grave and serious : grave violations are carried out by armed forces and the police, whereas serious violations are carried out by dissidents and non-aligned groups. It names the locations of these violations, and the individuals who should be held to account for them. This marks a significant change from previous reports, which outlined the incidence of such abuses but not specifically where, when or by whom they were perpetrated. Despite this, the recommendations are still relatively muted; they do not call on specific parties and individuals to take actions. The strongest recommendation issues a call to stakeholders to release all children from armed groups, pointing out specific commanders who are responsible. Others are more vague, and stated passively. The focus is less on ending impunity, and more on capacity-building measures generally. Based on the report s recommendations, the Security Council wrote a series of letters to: the DRC authorities, calling on them to crack down on violations against children by government troops UN agencies, to assist the government in ending impunity against violators of children s rights the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC), asking them to work with the government to implement the recommendations, including requesting MONUC to report every two months to the UN working group on the status of particular rebel commanders. The Security Council also communicated concerns to the DRC sanctions committee about a new rebel movement, and endorsed inclusion of members of this group for possible sanctions. Finally, the Council recommended a démarche by its president to the government of Rwanda regarding rebel leader Laurent Nkunda s movements across the border and the allegations of recruitment of Congolese children from Rwandan refugee camps. As a challenge, the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict came up with a parallel report on the DRC in April This outlines violations and makes specific recommendations for different parties, including the Security Council, governing authorities of the DRC, armed groups in the DRC, MONUC, the humanitarian community, donors and the ICC. The Watchlist report s recommendations are far more action-oriented, denoting clear activities that must be undertaken. For instance, the DRC governing authorities must ensure that military personnel from the Forces Armees de la Republic de Congo (FARDC) have not committed human rights and/or child rights violations before being integrated into the government army. The Watchlist report takes a broad approach, addressing the range of measures all members of the international community must take to redress current impunity for violations. In the course of Save the Children s research, many interviewees pointed to the need for a channel for NGOs to feed into the recommendations sections of future Secretary-General s reports on the DRC, so that field information about conditions for children can influence the Secretary-General s analysis. While NGOs are asked to give information on individual incidents through the MRM process, some NGOs wish also to help analyse trends and recommend next steps, as long as their impartiality can be maintained through the process. Meanwhile, other international mechanisms are being used to mount pressure on the legal front. Thomas Lubanga was arrested by the International Criminal Court in 2006 and as of 2007 is awaiting trial. He was head of rebel group the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) from Eastern DRC.This is the first case to be tried at the ICC in the Hague where recruitment of children is the sole charge on which a person has been indicted. In parallel to these developments, SCR 1698 on the DRC was passed in July For the first time, it extended sanctions criteria so that they could be applied to those involved in recruiting children or continued on page 12 11

17 CAN THE POWERFUL PROTECT? Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) case study continued other serious violations of international law against them, including killing and maiming, sexual violence, abduction and forced displacement. Extending pressure on violations of children in targeted reports and general country resolutions effectively amounts to pressure from all sides. As the expert to the chair of the Security Council working group on children and armed conflict, Philippe Bertoux, put it: One process without the other is doomed to fail.this way, the two are mutually reinforcing. However, progress must be contrasted against the situation on the ground. While MONUC s DDR activities are increasingly focused on children, according to the Secretary General s 2006 report on the DRC, there are still considerable weaknesses in the rehabilitation component. Further, despite MONUC s presence with 17,000 troops it is the world s largest peacekeeping force at least 1,000 women were raped in North Kivu in Furthermore, MONUC troops themselves have been implicated in sex abuse scandals in the country. The question remains: will all of this Security Council pressure amount to stronger child-focused action, or just more rhetoric? 4.5 Peacekeeping mandates still erratic When peacekeeping or peace enforcement is mentioned in a Security Council resolution it automatically leads to the development of a peacekeeping mandate. SCR 1379 (2001) was the first to specifically call for children s needs and risks to be addressed in peacekeeping missions. Since 2000, in Africa, almost all of the peacekeeping mandates have included a mention of protection for women and children, with the exception of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) (Ethiopia/Eritrea, 2000). These include the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) (Sudan, 2005), the UN Operation in Burundi (UNOB) (Burundi, 2004), the UN Operation in Côte d Ivoire (UNOCI) (Côte d Ivoire, 2005), the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) (Liberia, 2003) and DRC (MONUC) (DRC, 2000), as well as the one peacekeeping mandate in the Americas, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) (MINUSTAH, 2004). Compare this to 2003 when, of the 16 peacekeeping mandates that were passed or renewed, just three included a mention of children; or operations pre-1999 when, out of 11 mandates, there were no references to children at all, and only two references to protection. As a result of these factors, child protection risks becoming a sub-set of a sub-set of issues that may or may not be included in resolutions as they are renewed. However, challenges still remain when addressing the renewal of peacekeeping mandates. When new evidence of violations against children emerges in a UN country team report, it is not always followed up by stronger language and accountability in a renewed or revised mandate. As a result, SCR renewals end up tacking on additional pieces of information rather than reframing existing resolutions. This is partly due to the political nature of mandate renewal, as it is limited by Security Council members preconceptions of what a mandate has covered before. In addition, members are reluctant to fund or expand mandates for budgeting reasons. For instance, the permanent five Security Council members tend to prioritise peacekeeping operations and thus budgeting and renewals according to their own specific political interests; some interviewees noted that a peacekeeping mission in the Lebanon is much easier to fund than, say, a mission to the DRC. As a result of these factors, child protection risks becoming a sub-set of a sub-set of issues that may or may not be included in resolutions as they are renewed. Additionally, when peacekeeping mandates are devleoped into practical rules of engagement for 12

18 4 FOCUSING ON THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN peacekeeping missions, the protection components, and particularly the child protection components, are often not translated into tangible activities on the ground. This is due to lack of child protection training and lack of prioritisation. 4.6 Over-emphasis on child soldiers These broader impacts of war on children should not be seen as secondary issues.too often they go undocumented and unacknowledged. The picture that forms is one in which children affected by conflict are no longer invisible to the powers that be; however, the emphasis of child protection efforts is overwhelmingly on recruitment and demobilisation of child soldiers. This does not correspond to the reality on the ground. Protecting children who have been recruited by armed forces is of course important, but they are a minority among children affected by armed conflict. Children can be affected by conflict in a number of ways, including being displaced from their homes, being separated from their families, experiencing increased levels of violence, being exposed to the risk of sexual exploitation and abuse and gender-based violence, and missing out on education. This is now widely acknowledged by the OSRSG/CAC and others, but the Security Council s focus lags behind. The UN Secretary-General s Study on Violence against Children addresses violence in everyday life. The 2007 study revealed that violence against children is widespread, affecting 40 million children every year, and takes many forms, including sexual abuse, physical and humiliating punishment, neglect, torture, forced labour, early marriage and exploitation. These broader impacts of war on children should not be seen as secondary issues. Too often they go undocumented and unacknowledged. There are real risks to taking such a blinkered approach to the problems children face in conflict, for it leads the international community to the conclusion that it has made more progress in protecting children than it has, while children continue to suffer. One reason for this is the original emphasis in the 2005 Secretary-General s report, which focused overwhelmingly on offending parties who were implicated in recruiting children into the armed forces. This focus is useful for the Security Council because it can lead to a specific, concrete response public naming and shaming of recruiters in which progress can be measured. It provides a simpler focus than the murkier side of protection: increased violence in crises, forced migration, and sexual- and genderbased violence. These are much more difficult for the Security Council to monitor. 4.7 Reintegration after DDR needs strengthening Within this focus on children and DDR, a lot of progress has been made, mainly on the policy side, but actions on the ground lag behind. Security Council resolutions that address children within the DDR process have paved the way for a more concrete focus on this by the DPKO and other UN agencies. 13 But failure to translate policy into practice on the ground is continuing to hamper progress. For example, according to Save the Children s research in Liberia, despite explicit reference in the original UNMIL mandate in SCR 1309 (2003), children were at first entirely overlooked in the DDR process. Confusion as to how to address their needs persisted well into 2005, when advocacy by child-focused agencies started to have an impact on operations. (See Liberia case study overleaf for more detail.) Effective child-focused DDR tools have been developed to assist field missions in implementing DDR programme activities on the ground, as well as to shape the actions and approach of policy-makers and senior management. 11 However, these are not considered to be key texts by force commanders. No matter how many tools are available, children associated with armed forces can still be invisible. According to a spokesperson at the DPKO: If parties to a conflict hide the extent or engagement of children in their ranks, it s hard for DPKO to detect them. 13

19 CAN THE POWERFUL PROTECT? Liberia case study Children s issues have lately been included in Security Council mission reports on Liberia as part of wider regional reports on West Africa. Since 2001 there have been 20 Security Council resolutions on Liberia.The mentions of children in early resolutions ( ) relate to creating safe humanitarian corridors to deliver aid; securing access to IDPs and refugees; establishing the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and calling for a comprehensive DDR action plan for all parties involved in the conflict. After this, SCRs on Liberia began to focus more on child protection. SCR 1509 (2003) explicitly outlined the situation for children. It addressed sexual violence against women and children, the need to secure humanitarian access, the need to safeguard humanitarian workers, and stressed accountability to humanitarian law. The resolution outlines UNMIL s mandate, which makes reference to children. It calls on UNMIL to develop an action plan for the implementation of a DDR programme for all armed groups, with particular attention to the special needs of child combatants and women. From , SCRs on Liberia mention children less and less, as their focus shifts to the conflict s economic roots, its regional impact, current politics and the prospects for long-term peace. Since 2001 the Secretary-General has issued 16 reports on Liberia, according to the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict. Despite SCR 1460 s reporting requirements, few of the early reports analyse the situation for children. Even following UNMIL s mandate and initial deployment from late 2003 to early 2004, reports make little or no mention of children. The UN s DDR process started on 6 December 2003, with no clear plan as to how to address children associated with the armed forces, no special provisions for children, no child-focused guidelines, no policy on whether children needed to produce a weapon to benefit from the DDR process, no separate interim care centres for children, no public information campaign and no clear plan as to how the DDR process would address these issues in the future. 12 Yet UNMIL had to deal with large numbers of children who came forward to participate in the DDR process. Child-focused agencies made detailed recommendations to the UNMIL command on how to deal with these children. Save the Children called for an UNMIL strategy outlining who was in charge of what in terms of reintegration; an information campaign about the process; a reduced time lag between the disarmament and demobilisation (DD) and rehabilitation and reintegration (RR) of combatants; and a stronger reflection on the overall environment, including entrenched poverty and lack of education. UNICEF also urged UNMIL not to stress DD activities over RR, since former combatants who are not re-trained or educated will merely end up creating more tension, which could further undermine the peace process. DDR was discontinued in December 2003 due to lack of preparation and planning, and confusion over remuneration of ex-combatants that led to rioting in the streets of Monrovia. It was then re-started in April From this time, Secretary-General reports started to reflect the impact of advocacy work by agencies who repeatedly raised the issues relating to children. They refer to child-focused UNMIL staff training; progress on children and DDR; and truth and reconciliation activities for children. Despite this, confusion continued throughout 2004 as to how to address children in DDR activities, with just gradual improvements in understanding and policymaking in For instance, NGOs and UNICEF lobbied to prevent the distribution of cash payments to children, because they needed education and community acceptance rather than cash. Nevertheless, children involved in DDR programmes were given cash in hand. 13 Secretary-General reports from also addressed an issue that had been largely neglected by Security Council resolutions relating to the conflict: the potential for ex-combatants to cross borders and cause regional destabilisation, particularly in Côte d Ivoire. While UNMIL s original resolution alluded to the possibility of destabilisation which address[es] the continued on page 15 14