Children and Armed Conflict: Annual Open Debate
Tomorrow (24 June), the Security Council will hold its annual open debate on children and armed conflict. Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Vanessa Frazier will present the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, dated 16 June (S/2026/357). Briefings are also expected from UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell and a youth civil society representative.
The Secretary-General’s annual report covers the period from January to December 2025 and provides information on the six grave violations against children in situations on the children and armed conflict agenda, which include 22 country situations and one regional monitoring arrangement covering the Lake Chad Basin region. The six grave violations, as determined by the Security Council, are child recruitment and use; killing and maiming; abductions; rape and other forms of sexual violence; attacks on schools and hospitals; and the denial of humanitarian access. With the exception of the denial of humanitarian access, committing any of the other five violations could lead to a party being listed in the annexes of the annual report.
In 2025, the UN verified 38,558 grave violations that affected 24,174 children—representing the highest number of children affected by violations since the children and armed conflict agenda was established 30 years ago. These numbers include violations that were committed in previous years but were only verified in 2025. Unlike previous years, this annual report does not disaggregate this data, a change that was apparently introduced in order to align the reporting on children and armed conflict to other reporting by the UN.
The Secretary-General’s report attributes the unprecedented levels of violence affecting children to several factors, including the changing complexity of warfare, such as shifts in fighting from battlefields to urban settings, 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. The Secretary-General also cites a failure by parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) and the “near-total impunity” for such actions.
Colombia, the Council’s president in June, has circulated a concept note to help guide the discussion at tomorrow’s meeting. It has chosen to focus the meeting on reasserting the special protections accorded to children under IHL and IHRL, against the backdrop of “widespread non-compliance with these legal frameworks”. The open debate also aims to reaffirm the protection of education as an essential component in the protection of children and the prevention of further grave violations against them.
Frazier and Russell are expected to highlight trends in violations against children in the past year. They may note that, for the first time, the UN verified more violations committed by government forces (15,881), compared with 15,616 violations committed by non-state actors and approximately 4,000 that were not attributed to any actor. According to the Secretary-General’s report, state actors were the main perpetrators of killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access. Frazier might stress that this constitutes a worrying development, particularly as states bear the primary responsibility to protect children, and urge member states to use the annual report as a data-driven tool to compel behavioural change from conflict parties.
Russell may emphasise that the majority of child casualties resulted from the use of explosive ordnance—including mines, explosive remnants of war (ERW), and improvised explosive devices (IEDs)—as well as the growing use of drones. She may urge conflict parties to refrain from using explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas and to undertake the clearing of explosive ordnance.
Russell and Frazier are both likely to express concern about the increase in the denial of humanitarian assistance, as the Secretary-General’s report documented 8,322 such incidents, including attacks on humanitarian personnel—over 300 of whom were killed in 2025. They might highlight the detrimental effects on conflict-affected children—including disruption of access to healthcare, nutrition, and other forms of life-saving support—and remind conflict parties of their obligations under IHL to facilitate safe, timely, and unimpeded humanitarian access.
In line with the focus proposed by Colombia, many speakers are likely to highlight the growing threats to children’s right to education. The civil society representative is expected to share her experience of being displaced by violence, which has disrupted her access to education. She may also describe the assistance provided by civil society organisations on the ground to facilitate the continuation of learning for displaced children.
The briefers and Council members are likely to express alarm about the steadily increasing trend in attacks on schools and hospitals. The Secretary-General’s report recorded 1,680 attacks on schools and 813 assaults on hospitals in 2025, noting that this remained a particular issue of concern in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Speakers may refer to the 15 June report of the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack (GCPEA), which covers developments between 1 January 2024 and 31 December 2025 in 83 countries. The report documents over 1,912 cases of the military use of schools or universities. It also notes that Myanmar, Nigeria, Yemen, and Cameroon experienced the highest numbers of people harmed or killed from attacks on education, with over 1,700 students and staff killed or injured in those four countries alone.
As the children and armed conflict mandate marks its 30th anniversary, speakers are likely to reflect on both its achievements and the challenges it faces. Some may note the concrete impact of this agenda, including the release of over 220,000 children from armed forces and groups. According to the Secretary-General’s report, in 2025, more than 13,000 children formerly associated with armed forces or groups received protection or reintegration support from UNICEF and its partners. Additionally, the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed (OSRSG-CAAC) is currently negotiating action plans to end and prevent grave violations with several parties, including in Colombia, Myanmar, Sudan, and Syria.
The briefers and many member states may stress that the alarming global rise in grave violations despite the robust normative framework of the children and armed conflict agenda highlights the urgency of effective action. This is especially crucial in light of challenges such as the budget crisis facing the UN and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). They may also mention the difficulties affecting the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, including due to Council divisions and the delayed start of its operation in 2025 because of the late agreement on the allocation of subsidiary body chairs and its lack of activity this year due to non-agreement on these allocations to date in 2026. (For more information, see the brief on children and armed conflict in our June 2026 Monthly Forecast.)
Some speakers are likely to emphasise the need for continued political and financial support by the international community for the agenda. They may encourage support for the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism (MRM) by facilitating adequate child protection capacities in UN peace operations, including in the context of drawdown or transition of such operations. There may also be calls on member states to endorse and implement normative frameworks such as the 2022 Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA) and the Safe Schools Declaration.
In addition to cross-cutting issues, several speakers are likely to highlight specific country and regional situations. The Secretary-General’s report notes that the highest number of grave violations were verified in Israel and the OPT (12,445), the DRC (4,114), Nigeria (2,560), Myanmar (2,203), and Somalia (2,195). The report lists several new parties in the annexes to his report, namely gangs in Haiti (Gran Grif, Kraze Barye, and 400 Mawozo) and armed groups in Niger (the Islamic State-Sahel Province and Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad). It also issues warnings to a relatively long list of actors that committed violations in 2025, noting that they should be listed if the high numbers of violations were to be repeated in 2026. These are the Congolese armed forces (Forces armées de la République démocratique du Congo in French, FARDC) for killing and maiming, the Haitian National Police (HNP) and Special Security Task Force for killing and maiming, Israeli settlers for committing grave violations in the OPT, and the Israeli armed and security forces for killing and maiming in Lebanon.
As in previous years, political divergences on some contentious files may colour the proceedings at tomorrow’s open debate. For instance, some European member states may note that Russian security forces have been listed in the annexes of the Secretary-General’s annual report for the fourth consecutive year for violations committed in Ukraine. They may recall in this regard the Secretary-General’s 2 September 2015 report on the future of UN peace operations, in which he determined that “[s]tate parties repeatedly listed in my annual reports on children and armed conflict and on conflict-related sexual violence will henceforth not be accepted for participation in United Nations peace operations” and called on them to engage with his respective Special Representatives in order to be delisted. Russia, for its part, is likely to accuse Western countries of ignoring violations committed by Ukrainian forces against Russian children.
During a 19 June side event marking the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, a heated exchange transpired between Frazier and Israel’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Danny Danon, regarding a statement Danon had made about reporting by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict. Danon subsequently sent a letter to the Security Council about the incident (S/2026/509) and may raise the issue at tomorrow’s meeting. Other speakers are likely to highlight that almost 30 percent of the violations documented in the Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict were attributed to Israel, and urge the country to meaningfully engage with the OSRSG-CAAC on an action plan to end and prevent grave violations.
