Children and Armed Conflict
Expected Council Action
In October, the Security Council will hold a briefing on children and armed conflict. The meeting—which Greece is organising as a signature event of its October Council presidency—will mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the children and armed conflict mandate by the General Assembly. Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis is expected to chair the meeting. The anticipated briefers are Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Vanessa Frazier, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, African Union (AU) Special Envoy for Children Affected by Armed Conflict Jainaba Jagne, and a civil society representative.
Background and Key Recent Developments
The children and armed conflict agenda, which today is an integral part of the work of the Security Council, has its origins in the General Assembly. A 1996 report by Graça Machel (a former minister of education and culture in Mozambique), produced in line with a request made by the General Assembly in 1993, led to the creation of the post of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict through General Assembly resolution 51/77 of 12 December 1996. Among other things, the report called on the Security Council to be kept informed of child-specific concerns in its work.
The children and armed conflict agenda—which is one of the Security Council’s most developed thematic issues—has been developed through the adoption of 14 resolutions and 13 presidential statements to date. Among the tools established by the Council are the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM)—which collects and verifies information on grave violations committed against children—and the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. (The six grave violations, as determined by the Security Council, are child recruitment and use; killing and maiming; rape and other forms of sexual violence; attacks on schools and hospitals; abductions; and the denial of humanitarian access.) Conclusions adopted by the Working Group, as well as the annexes in the Secretary-General’s annual report—which list parties that have committed certain violations against children—have helped to promote accountability and to encourage parties to take steps such as signing and implementing action plans to end and prevent grave violations.
The children and armed conflict mandate has produced tangible results in the past 30 years, including the release of more than 220,000 children from armed forces and groups. At the Security Council’s latest annual open debate on children and armed conflict, held on 24 June, Frazier noted that, in 2025, parties to conflict in places such as Haiti and Syria made approximately 40 commitments, including concerning handover protocols, capacity-building initiatives, and other forms of engagement with the UN. Frazier reported that her office was negotiating action plans with several listed parties, including in Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, and Syria. In total, 38 action plans have been signed since the establishment of the children and armed conflict mandate, 12 of which were fully implemented and led to the de-listing of the relevant parties.
At the 24 June open debate, the briefers and many member states lamented the fact that, despite this important progress, there has been a worrying increase in grave violations committed against children in the past several years. The Secretary-General’s latest annual report on children and armed conflict, dated 16 June and covering 2025, recorded 38,558 grave violations that affected 24,174 children—representing the highest number of children affected by violations since the establishment of the mandate. (For more information, see our 23 June What’s in Blue story.)
Many speakers argued that this situation stems not from the absence of norms or mechanisms to end and prevent grave violations against children, but rather from a lack of political will to fully implement them. In this regard, Frazier and UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell urged member states to use every tool at their disposal to compel conflict parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL).
The briefers and several Council members—including Greece, Pakistan, and Somalia—also raised concerns about the effects on children of the rapidly changing nature of warfare, such as the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, the expanded use of uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), and the growing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into targeting processes. In this regard, there were calls for member states, the UN, and private companies to ensure that technological advances remain under human control and legal oversight.
In late June, Greece circulated to Council members a draft resolution on the impact of digital technologies on violations against children in armed conflict. Negotiations on the text were ongoing at the time of writing.
Developments in the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict
Almost ten months into the year, Council members have been unable to agree on the allocation of subsidiary body chairs in light of a dispute concerning the 1737 Iran Sanctions Committee. This has prevented the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict from carrying out its work, creating a significant backlog in the adoption of conclusions on the Secretary-General’s country-specific reports on children and armed conflict. In 2025, Security Council members were unable to agree on the allocation of subsidiary body chairs until 29 May, at which point Greece was appointed as chair. Given the condensed timeframe and difficult dynamics among Council members, the Working Group was only able to adopt conclusions on one report, on the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The Working Group had begun negotiating its conclusions on two reports in 2025—on Burkina Faso and Mali—but was unable to reach agreement by the end of the year. In addition, there are six country reports that Council members have received but have yet to begin negotiating conclusions on, namely Myanmar, Yemen, South Sudan, Syria, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
Key Issues and Options
Next month’s meeting marking the 30th anniversary of the children and armed conflict mandate presents an opportunity to reflect both on its achievements and on ways to address the significant challenges it is facing. The Working Group’s failure in recent years to adopt conclusions in a timely manner, due to both the late allocation of subsidiary body chairs and difficult dynamics among Council members, is a matter of serious concern, as it hampers the Council’s ability to respond to developments on the ground and to promote accountability for grave violations against children. Considering this unprecedented situation, member states wishing to preserve the mandate will need to undertake collaborative, creative approaches in the remainder of 2026 and beyond.
A matter of priority is resuming negotiations on conclusions. This year, although Council presidencies have convened meetings of some subsidiary bodies, in line with contingency measures outlined in a 2023 presidential note (S/2023/615), no presidency has organised a meeting of the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. An option would be for Council presidents to convene informal meetings to conduct negotiations on the two sets of conclusions that members began discussing in 2025 (Burkina Faso and Mali).
A related issue is how to make conclusions more succinct and fit for purpose to allow for smoother negotiations. Council members could discuss this in an informal format, such as an informal interactive dialogue (IID), which would allow child protection actors to provide information on how they use the conclusions to engage with conflict parties on ending and preventing grave violations.
Over the years, the Working Group has been crucial in facilitating the integration of child protection considerations into the Council’s broader work, including in its products and meetings. Members could consider ways to continue doing so. An option is to convene videoconference meetings with the relevant country task force on monitoring and reporting (CTFMR) ahead of negotiations on Council products, particularly mandate renewal resolutions—a practice that some Working Group chairs promoted in previous years.
Another key priority for the Council is monitoring the development and implementation by conflict parties of action plans to end and prevent grave violations against children. An option would be to organise informal sessions such as the May 2018 Arria-formula meeting, at which a number of African member states—Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC, and Sudan—shared best practices on implementing action plans. The DRC, which currently serves as an elected Council member, shared some of its relevant experiences during the 24 June open debate.
The Working Group has also been unable to conduct visiting missions, which were helpful in generating momentum around the implementation of commitments by conflict parties. An option would be for Council members to organise an informal visit focused on children and armed conflict. Such a visit could prioritise encouraging parties to sign or implement action plans.
Another matter of concern is the cuts by traditional donors to humanitarian funding and to the budgets of UN peace operations and their negative effects on child protection and monitoring and reporting capacities. Increasing the visibility of the children and armed conflict agenda could encourage financial and political support from a cross-regional array of member states. In this regard, interested member states could choose to organise a follow-up to the conference on children and armed conflict that Malta organised in May, bringing together member states as well as UN and civil society representatives. (For more options, see our 12 June 2025 research report on children and armed conflict.)
Council and Wider Dynamics
The children and armed conflict agenda enjoys general support among Council members and the wider UN membership. However, political sensitivities have created difficulties in recent years, including in the functioning of the Working Group.
In January, the US announced that it would withdraw from several international organisations and entities, including the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (OSRSG-CAAC). At the 24 June open debate, the US criticised the fact that the Secretary-General’s latest report references child casualties caused by US-authorised air strikes against Houthi targets, noting that this further reinforces Washington’s decision to cease cooperation with the OSRSG-CAAC. It is currently unclear how this position will affect US participation in the Working Group once it is able to operate again.
It seems that the US has expressed opposition to the inclusion of language on the OSRSG-CAAC in Council products. Additionally, US objection to language on gender was apparently a sticking point leading to protracted negotiations on Working Group conclusions in 2025.
At the 24 June open debate, Israel and Russia reiterated their accusations that the Secretary-General’s report is biased, maintaining that it fails to capture violations committed by Palestinian armed groups and Ukraine, respectively. Russia argued in this regard that “depoliticizing” the children and armed conflict agenda should be a priority for the next UN Secretary-General. Many other member states used the meeting to reiterate their support for the OSRSG-CAAC and highlighted their conviction in the impartiality and rigour of its work.
| Secretary-General’s Reports | |
| 16 June 2026S/2026/357 | This was the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict. |
| Security Council Meeting Records | |
| 24 June 2026S/PV.10182 | This was the Security Council’s annual open debate on children and armed conflict, held on 24 June 2026. |