UN Security Council Resolutions (SCR) set the legal basis and overall policy guidance for the UN and its member States. Since 1999, the UN Security Council has adopted seven Resolutions on children and armed conflict. Of particular importance are:
– SCR 1539 (2004) outlined the scope of actions that constitute grave violations against children in armed conflict. These are: using and recruiting child soldiers, killing and maiming children, abducting children, committing rape and sexual violence against children, conducting attacks against schools and hospitals and denying children access to humanitarian assistance.
– SCR 1612 (2005) established a unique framework for monitoring and reporting on violations against children in armed conflict, as well as a Security Council Working Group dedicated to the issues of children and armed conflict. It also requested the UN Secretary-General to list the names of parties to a conflict that recruit and use child soldiers in his annual reports on children and armed conflict. This “list of shame” triggers concrete action against perpetrators, either in remedial form (action plans) or punitive form (sanctions).
– SCR 1882 (2009) requested that the Secretary-General includes in the “list of shame” not only parties that recruit and use child soldiers, but also parties that engage in patterns of killing and maiming children and/or rape and sexual violence against children in situations of conflict.
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