Veleposlanik Ranko Vilovic, privremeni otpravnik poslova Stalne misije RH pri Ujedinjenim narodima, održao je govor na javnoj raspravi Vijeca sigurnosti UN-a na temu djece u oružanim sukobima.
Mr. President,
At the outset allow me to thank the Security Council Presidency Mexico for organizing this open debate. Croatia welcomes the report of the Secretary General and commends the important work of the Secretary General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Mrs. Radhika Coomaraswamy, as well as the many non-governmental organizations working in the field. Their contribution is of tremendous importance since it gives voice to the individual children who are or who become victims of these grave violations.
As a member of Security Council and its Working Group on Children in Armed Conflict Croatia has had the opportunity to witness the importance of its monitoring and reporting mechanisms. The MRM requires the Council to react to situations where recruitment and use of children take place. By listing parties to armed conflict that recruit and use children, in the annexes of his Reports, the Secretary-General gives the Security Council and its Working Group an opportunity to use different tools in response to these violations.
However, this mechanism is triggered only if the recruitment and use of child soldiers occurs. In other words, if parties to a conflict commit one of the five grave violations against children other than the recruitment or use children, they will not be listed in the Report and the Security Council will not have the opportunity to act upon it. In practice that means that the Security Council will not request anything from those parties in a conflict area, where children are being raped, where schools and hospitals are being attacked, or children are being deliberately killed or maimed and the abduction of children is ongoing.
Croatia therefore welcomes the recommendation of the Secretary General that the Security Council expand the criteria for the annexes of his reports to include parties that commit rape and other grave sexual violence against children in armed conflict, without prejudice to the possibility of further expanding the criteria in the future to include other violations.
Mr. President,
The atmosphere of impunity and lack of accountability will allow perpetrators to continue hurting children in various ways. Without any real repercussion or the threat of targeted measures from the Security Council, perpetrators have no reason to stop their acts.
Croatia understands that all grave violations need equal attention in the Council. We would, however, like to emphasize that children in situations of armed conflict are particularly vulnerable, and that intentional acts of rape and sexual violence carry with them long term repercussions for both the individual children as well as the societies they live in. Croatia is appalled by the fact that children represent one-third of those brutalized by rape. Croatia is also deeply concerned about UNESCO's findings that the number of attacks on schools, students and teachers has increased six-fold between 2003 and 2006.
These deliberate acts, together with many reported incidents involving the throwing of acid on girl's faces, aim to strip children of their education, leaving them even more vulnerable to future violations.
We are alarmed about the numerous incidents where humanitarian workers have been killed, abducted, beaten or threatened. Such acts as well as looting of aid convoys deny children from life saving humanitarian assistance and must be stopped.
Mr. President,
In order to ensure the protection of children in armed conflict, the Security Council can show its commitment through the possible adoption of a new resolution on children and armed conflict. This new resolution could give the Council an opportunity to expand the trigger of the MRM to include rape and other grave sexual violence against children. It could also authorize relevant UN personnel to enter into a dialogue with armed forces and groups in order to verify implementation of time-bound action plans and could request the Secretary-General to include information on the implementation of all requests made in the Security Council Working Group's conclusions.
Moreover, Croatia believes that the Security Council should consider referring individual cases of grave violations against children in armed conflict to the International Criminal Court, especially where national systems fail to address these cases.
At the end, allow me to express our gratitude to all stakeholders who have been working on the protection of children. Only by joining our efforts we can hope to reach the common goal of a world where children are neither victims nor targets in armed conflicts.
Thank you, Mr. President.
Priopćenja
