UN child rights chief slams ‘increased impunity toward international law’ in interview with Arab News
NEW YORK: “When I’m talking about them, I’m counting those numbers, reciting the numbers in the council. I have images of children in my mind,” Vanessa Frazier, the UN special representative for children and armed conflict, told Arab News, describing how she carries the toll of her own report — 38,558 grave violations against 24,174 children in 2025 — into the Security Council chamber.
Frazier briefed the council on Wednesday on her office’s annual report, which found that government forces, not armed terror groups, are now the leading perpetrators of grave violations against children for the first time in the three-decade history of the mandate.
“This report isn’t a wake-up call,” she told members. “After decades of evidence, warnings and appeals, the international community can’t claim ignorance of what’s happening to children in armed conflict.
“If we’re still not awake after all that millions of children have and continue to endure, then we must confront a far more troubling truth — that inaction isn’t the result of ignorance. It’s a conscious political choice.”
