OPINION_ Obama And Putin Must Stop The Appalling Slaughter Of Syria's Children_ Forbes

Op/Ed | 12/06/2013 @ 9:44AM |200 views

Obama And Putin Must Stop The Appalling Slaughter Of Syria's Children

By Siddarth Chatterjee
Forbes


On December 10, 2013, the world will mark the 20th year of Human Rights Day. Yet the rights of the world’s children caught in armed conflicts continue to be violated with impunity. Consider this: 11,420 children were killed in Syria between March 2011 and August 2013. Among them, 389 were killed by snipers, 764, executed and 100, tortured.

Who is protecting the rights of these children?

Research from the Oxford Research Group report, ‘Stolen Futures – the Hidden Toll of Child Casualties in Syria’ is damning in that it shows that children were specifically and deliberately targeted.

It highlights the depravity of all sides of Syria’s combatants.

Nelson Mandela once said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

This is not just about Syria’s soul. By hesitating to condemn and act to prevent such atrocities, countries with influence in the region have abandoned all children.

These findings are nothing short of appalling. But more tragic is the increasingly blasé attitude toward the bloodshed of children caught in conflict. It seems increasingly acceptable to have children in the crossfire.

Where is the outrage? Where are the actions that warn countries that harming children will be met with the harshest punishment? Where are the punitive measures against armed groups that attack children? And perhaps most critically, why has the well-being of the children of Syria fallen into the periphery of the United Nations (UN) Security Council’s consciousness?

Syria is a microcosm of the tyranny of violence children face worldwide. Over the course of the long-ranging and brutal civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, nearly 2.7 million children have been killed. In the Bosnian conflict, 3,372 children were killed or were listed as missing; many of their fates are still unclear. According to UNICEF, child casualties as a result of violence in Afghanistan increased by 27% in the first few months of 2013.

The shocking reality is that these are not exceptions. In 22 countries around the world that experience conflict today, children are routinely targeted and exposed to some of the most egregious forms of violence.

I have seen this violence firsthand while working with UNICEF in South Sudan in 2000-2001. Families and communities lost their children to the debilitating conflict with the north. It destroyed families and communities, and triggered an inter-generational cycle of revenge leading to more death, misery and devastation. Thousands of psychologically scarred children are still trying to adjust to life in South Sudan as adults now, where there is a lack of mental health services.

Children – raped, maimed or tortured – are targeted to inflict maximum damage on their families whose spirits are broken and battered due to this violence. Many are forced to become child soldiers. Almost all children raised in the theatre of war suffer from intense post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Families and communities alike often don’t recover from such tragedies.

The UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child clearly articulates that the “rights of children require special protection.” The Hague Convention on Jurisdiction for the Protection of Children states that “the best interests of the child are to be a primary consideration.” The culture of impunity despite the wealth of safeguards for children is utterly inexcusable.

The United Nations Security Council needs to put principles over politics and unite in its condemnation of countries and groups that visit such horror on children. They have the power to enforce the laws that protect children in conflicts.

It is imperative that the powers of international bodies such as the International Criminal Court be bolstered and reserve tough punishment not just for those that act against children, but also those who sanctioned it and those who did not report it. Any state, group or person that can be considered complicit in the death of children must be held accountable to maximum extent of the law.

Spurred by the United States and Russia, Syria’s groups are now preparing to meet in Geneva in January 2014 for talks on bringing about a peace. Preventing further violence against children must be on the top of the agenda for this meeting. It is up to various powers to ensure this and deliver a united message to all sides of the conflict that violence against Syria’s children will not be tolerated.

President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin, have an historic opportunity to mark their legacies by bringing an end to this scourge of violence against children in Syria and perhaps everywhere in the world.

The sentencing and incarceration of Congo’s notorious warlord Thomas Lubunga and the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, for crimes against children is a step in the right direction. In the absence of moral values and compassion, public shaming and strict punitive measures will have to suffice to deter those who wilfully ignore the most fundamental of human tenets – the protection and rights of children.

These are personal views of Siddharth Chatterjee. He is the Chief Diplomat at the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, IFRC. Follow him on twitter: @sidchat1

Read more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/12/06/obama-and-putin-must-stop-the-appalling-slaughter-of-syrias-children/




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