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UNICEF to Security Council: verified grave violations against children hit record highs
Summary
Sheema Sengupta, speaking for UNICEF at the United Nations Security Council, said the Secretary-General's report shows a 25% rise in verified grave violations against children and called on states to take six urgent actions including ending use of explosive weapons in populated areas and funding reintegration programs.
Sheema Sengupta, UNICEF representative, told the United Nations Security Council during a briefing that this year's Secretary-General report recorded the highest number of verified grave violations against children since the monitoring mechanism began, a 25% increase from 2023.
Sengupta said thousands of children were killed or maimed, and thousands more recruited, abducted, raped, or denied humanitarian assistance. "These are just the verified cases. We all know that the real number, the real scale of the harm is far higher," she said.
The rise in verified violations is concentrated across multiple conflicts. Sengupta cited more than 8,000 verified grave violations in Israel and the State of Palestine last year and named repeated incidents in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Ukraine, Lebanon and elsewhere. She identified two deeply disturbing trends: the increased use of explosive weapons in populated areas and a sharp rise in sexual and gender-based violence against children.
Sengupta said explosive…
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