Rights of the Child Realizing the Rights of the Child Affected by Armed Conflict

A/HRC/RES/61/21View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3 Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2026.

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 subjects

Accountability Artificial Intelligence Child Soldiers Children in Armed Conflicts Crime Prevention Human Rights Violations Mental Health Rights of the Child

What’s in this document?

34 operative paragraphs

Condemns in the strongest terms all violations and abuses committed against children in armed conflict, including the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, killing and maiming, rape and/or other forms of sexual violence, abduction, attacks on and military use of schools and hospitals, denial of humanitarian access, and other violations and abuses, including the forcible transfer and deportation of children;

Affirms that States bear the primary responsibility to protect, respect and fulfil the rights of children affected by armed conflict in accordance with their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law;

Urges States to take effective and time-bound measures to prevent and end violations and abuses against the rights of the child and to protect children from their impact, ensuring, in all actions, the best interest of the child as a primary consideration, including through gender-, age-, and disability-responsive, survivor-centred support services, including mental health and psychosocial support, access to health services, including sexual and reproductive healthcare services, education, social protection and reintegration programmes;

Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to strictly uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, in order to prevent and mitigate harm to children and to civilian facilities and infrastructure essential for their survival;

Calls upon States to:

consider ratifying and implementing international and regional legal instruments, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocols thereto, as well as the Additional Protocols to the universally ratified Geneva Conventions;

integrate specific child protection provisions into military doctrine and the standard operating procedures and rules of engagement of the military and security forces and reinforce implementation through training;

ensure that United Nations peace operations and special political missions are equipped with strong child protection mandates, dedicated advisers and adequate resources, and provide financial resources to ensure the sustainability of this capacity in the United Nations country team following transitions;

take concrete measures to ensure compliance with international law, including through criminalization as offences punishable in national legislation, training, effective investigations of alleged violations, and the prosecution of those responsible for violations;

Invites States to consider endorsing guidelines contained in different documents, inter alia, the Safe Schools Declaration and its Guidelines, the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and the Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers, the Paris Commitments and Principles on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups, the Political Declaration on Strengthening the Protection of Civilians from the Humanitarian Consequences Arising from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas, and relevant United Nations resolutions;

Calls upon all parties to armed conflict to restrict or refrain from, as appropriate, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, when their use may be expected to cause harm to civilians, including killings, maiming, lifelong disabilities and psychological trauma, or civilian objects, including essential civilian infrastructure, schools, medical facilities and places of worship, in accordance with international law, and to take all feasible precautions to minimize such harm, and urges States to strengthen assistance to child victims, including medical care and rehabilitation as well as clearance of explosive remnants of war and risk education;

Calls upon States and all parties to armed conflict to immediately end and prevent the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, in violation of international law, to recognize children allegedly or formerly associated with armed forces or non-State armed groups, including those designated as terrorist groups by the United Nations, primarily as victims, including by ensuring their swift release from the custody of parties to conflict and their handover to civilian protection actors and to adopt and implement comprehensive, gender-, age- and disability-responsive community-based programmes for the demobilization, reintegration, rehabilitation, physical and psychological recovery, and social reintegration of children formerly associated with armed forces and armed groups, including through access to education and vocational training, and ensuring quality, sustained mental health and psychosocial support; and further stresses the need to allocate, as appropriate, sustainable resources to ensure the long-term success of such programmes;

Encourages efforts to prevent and address the online recruitment and exploitation of children by armed actors, including through measures to criminalize and sanction technology-facilitated solicitation and grooming of children, awareness-raising and digital-literacy programmes, engagement with technology companies, as well as measures to reduce children’s exposure to harmful or deceptive online content used for recruitment and addressing risks arising from the misuse of digital surveillance technologies and children’s data;

Strongly condemns rape and other forms sexual violence against children, and all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse of children affected by armed conflict, acknowledging that sexual violence in these situations disproportionately affects girls, but that boys are also targets, recognizing that such acts may constitute torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and calls upon States to ensure that all children affected by conflict-related sexual violence have access to timely, confidential, non-discriminatory and gender-, age- and disability-responsive support measures, including health services, ensuring the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including sexual and reproductive healthcare services, as well as education, psychosocial support, universal, free and non-discriminatory birth registration and access to civil documentation, to adopt effective, adequately resourced measures to prevent statelessness, particularly for children born of conflict-related sexual violence, and to address stigma, discrimination and promote the full recovery, dignity and social integration of affected children;

Calls upon States to develop and implement measures to address the increased risk of vulnerability among women and girls to forced marriage, including those women and girls who are hardest to reach and are already married, in particular adolescent girls, in consultation with and with the participation of women and girls, and integrating them into humanitarian responses, from the early stages of humanitarian emergencies, and protecting women and girls from all forms of violence, including sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation during humanitarian emergencies, situations of forced displacement, armed conflict, natural hazard and public health emergencies, including by ensuring their access to such services as health and education, providing inclusive and equitable quality education, and strengthening follow-up and interventions to prevent and eliminate forced marriage in humanitarian settings and to address the needs of those affected;

Reaffirms all parties to armed conflicts must take immediate and concrete measures to prevent, halt and respond to attacks against schools, hospitals and other critical civilian infrastructure, including United Nations and humanitarian premises, and to uphold their protected status, as applicable, under international humanitarian law; further urges them to refrain from any action that endangers or impedes children’s safe access to education and health services, including any military use of educational or health facilities or any other action that compromises the civilian character of such facilities;

Calls upon States to safeguard, protect, respect, fulfil and promote the right to education, including in situations of armed conflict, reaffirming its contribution to the achievement of peace and security and its essential role as life-saving and protective spaces for children, and encourages States, with the support of the United Nations and relevant humanitarian and development actors, to ensure the continuation of education for all children affected by armed conflict, through safe and appropriate alternative education modalities, distance or remote learning solutions when feasible, catch-up programmes, measures to recognize children’s existing education credentials, ensuring relevant education personnel and access to necessary learning materials, while taking into account girls’ equal access to education and addressing gender-based discrimination, gender stereotypes and negative social norms in education systems;

Reaffirms the obligations, under international humanitarian law, of all parties to armed conflict to allow, facilitate and enable the rapid and unimpeded delivery of humanitarian assistance, in accordance with the principles of humanity, impartiality, in particular food and medicine and other essential supplies, to populations under their control, and to facilitate humanitarian operations, including medical evacuations, without discrimination of any kind while, for all civilians in need, taking into account the particular needs of children;

Calls upon all parties to respect and protect humanitarian personnel and assets, to refrain from actions that compromise principled humanitarian action or the safety of humanitarian actors delivering assistance to children in line with international humanitarian law;

Calls upon States to uphold the principle of non-refoulement and to ensure access to child-sensitive asylum and international protection procedures for children affected by armed conflict, irrespective of their status, and to respect family unity in accordance with their obligations under international law;

Expresses deep concern at the abduction, trafficking, forcible transfer, unlawful deportation and separation of children from their families and legal guardians in situations of armed conflict, practices which constitute grave violations against children, recalling that such acts, including the unlawful transfer of children and any forced change of their personal status or obstruction of access to identity documentation, are prohibited under international humanitarian law and international human rights law; and further emphasizes the urgent need to ensure the safe, rapid and unconditional reunification of affected children with their families and legal guardians, and to prevent any further such violations;

Calls upon States to take all appropriate measures to ensure accountability for all violations and abuses committed against children affected by armed conflict, and encourages all relevant accountability mechanisms, including transitional justice mechanisms, to systematically apply a child-rights-based approach, by including child rights expertise and appropriate resources in their mandates, and ensuring that investigations and prosecutions fully respect the rights of the child and take into account their experiences, while ensuring the dignity, safety, privacy and participation of children, including children with disabilities, while avoiding retraumatization and protecting them from reprisals;

Also calls upon States to strengthen monitoring and reporting of violations and abuses against children affected by armed conflict through the systematic collection of disaggregated data and cooperation with national human rights institutions, civil society, and community-level actors;

Further calls upon States to ensure that children that are victims of violations or abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law have full access to justice, including through prompt, independent and impartial investigations into violations, and access to effective and prompt remedies and reparation, including through restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition in a systematic and thorough way at the national and international level, developed in consultation with victims and survivors, and underlines that remedies should be gender-, age- and disability-responsive and contribute to restoring children’s rights, dignity and long-term well-being in an inclusive and non-discriminatory manner;

Urges States to ensure that counter-terrorism measures involving children comply with international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and do not result in unlawful detention, transfer to adult facilities or separation from caregivers, and that such measures fully respect the best interests of the child;

Calls upon States and all parties to armed conflict to integrate the protection of children affected by armed conflict throughout all phases of the conflict cycle, including during post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding efforts; and further encourages States to ensure adequate, predictable and sustainable funding for child protection programmes, including quality, sustained and community-based mental health and psychosocial support programmes, safe and child-sensitive counselling, as well as complaint and reporting mechanisms and other safeguards for the rights of all affected children;

Invites States to ensure the meaningful participation of children affected by armed conflict in the design, implementation, follow-up and evaluation of policies and programmes throughout the conflict cycle, including conflict prevention, peace and post-conflict processes, including protection, justice, accountability, reparation and recovery, in a manner that is ethical, meaningful and safe;

Encourages strengthened cooperation between States, the United Nations and other relevant actors to support the development and implementation of measures aimed at ending and preventing violations and abuses against children affected by armed conflict, including through the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on Children and Armed Conflict, and to ensure safe and unhindered access for child protection actors, inter alia through enhanced collaboration with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and other relevant actors;

Calls upon States, in cooperation with the United Nations, including UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other relevant humanitarian child-protection organizations, to prioritize the prompt identification, family tracing and safe reunification of unaccompanied and separated children, including through the strengthening of national child-protection systems, cross-border coordination where appropriate, and the use of child-sensitive procedures and safeguards in line with international standards; and to ensure interim care arrangements that are child-rights based, protection-oriented and in line with international standards, pending family tracing and reunification;

Encourages States and relevant United Nations entities to continue to take into consideration and to ensure systemic and effective application of the Secretary-General´s Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming, including through active, meaningful, ethical and safe engagement and participation of children, particularly those most at risk of being left behind, in all relevant decision-making processes, actions and forums, including in the context of ongoing United Nations reforms;

Invites all human rights treaty bodies to continue to integrate the rights of the child into their work, within their respective mandates, in particular their concluding observations and general comments and recommendations, paying attention to the adverse impact of armed conflict on children and on the full enjoyment of the rights of the child, and encourages them to consult children in an ethical, meaningful and safe manner;

Calls upon all human rights mechanisms of the Human Rights Council, including subsidiary and advisory bodies, as relevant, to monitor and analyse more consistently the root causes of child rights violations and abuses, including in the context of armed conflict through disaggregated data, considering all children in marginalized and vulnerable situations, and to translate that analysis into specific and action-oriented recommendations for all relevant stakeholders to promote accountability for children’s rights;

Decides to continue its consideration of the question of the rights of the child in accordance with its programme of work and its resolutions 7/29 of 28 March 2008 and 19/37 of 23 March 2012, and requests the Office of the High Commissioner to organize its annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child in 2027 on the theme of the promotion of children´s mental health and well-being, to ensure appropriate resources to support and facilitate the participation of children, ensuring that they have easy access to relevant premises, and to make the discussion fully accessible to children and to persons with disabilities;

Requests the High Commissioner to prepare a report on the rights of the child and artificial intelligence, in close cooperation with all relevant stakeholders, including States, relevant special procedure mandate holders, other relevant United Nations bodies and agencies, regional organizations and human rights bodies, national human rights institutions and civil society, including through consultations with children themselves, to make the report available in an accessible and child-friendly format and to present the report to the Human Rights Council at its sixty-sixth session, and requests the Office of the High Commissioner to organize the annual full-day meeting on the rights of the child in 2028 on the theme of the rights of the child and artificial intelligence, to ensure appropriate resources to support the participation of children, ensuring that they have easy access to relevant premises, and to make the discussion fully accessible to children and to persons with disabilities.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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