NEW YORK: Syria’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ibrahim Olabi said Syria remains committed to protecting children’s rights and strengthening cooperation with the UN in this field, including efforts to develop a national action plan aimed at preventing violations against children.
Speaking during the UN Security Council’s open debate on Children and Armed Conflict on Wednesday, Olabi thanked the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Vanessa Frazier for her briefing and continued engagement with the Syrian government on the issue.
Olabi said Syrians remember that children were among the first victims of the deposed Assad regime 14 years ago, when security services arrested, tortured, and forcibly disappeared a number of children after they wrote slogans calling for the regime’s overthrow on a school wall.
He said those children ignited the spark of the Syrian revolution and became enduring symbols of it.
Since liberation, Syria has reaffirmed through the Constitutional Declaration issued in March last year that all rights contained in international human rights treaties and conventions ratified by the country form an integral part of the declaration, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Olabi added.
