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	Shocking increase in children denied aid in conflicts by ICRC, UNICEF, OHCHR, Save the Children, agencies   Apr. 2024   Shocking increase in children denied aid in conflicts. (UN News)   All warring parties must allow safe, swift and unfettered humanitarian access and protect civilian infrastructure, top UN officials told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.   Painting a grim landscape of the world’s war zones, Virginia Gamba, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, briefed ambassadors, citing grave concerns, from war-torn Gaza to gang-ravaged Haiti, where famine looms amid rampant violence and displacement.   “Let me be very clear,” she said. “The Geneva Conventions and the Convention on the Rights of the Child contain key provisions requiring the facilitation of humanitarian relief to children in need.   “The denial of humanitarian access to children and attacks against humanitarian workers assisting children are also prohibited under international humanitarian law.”   The UN’s engagement with combatants to end and prevent violations against children is critical, she said.   Data gathered for her forthcoming 2024 report shows “we are on target to witness a shocking increase of the incidents of the denial of humanitarian access globally,” she said, adding that “the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law continues to increase.”   “Without compliance by parties to conflict to allow safe, full and unhindered access for the timely delivery of humanitarian assistance, children’s survival, wellbeing and development are in jeopardy, and our calls are mere echoes in this Chamber,” she told the Council.   “We cannot prevent denial of humanitarian access to children unless we understand it and reinforce our capacity to monitor and prevent its occurrence. We must get on with the job.”   Also briefing the Council, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban, said that as conflicts proliferate around the world, grave violations against children continue, including in Gaza, Sudan and Myanmar.   “The denial of humanitarian access is a particularly pervasive, multifaceted and complex grave violation,” he said. “These actions have devastating humanitarian consequences for children.”   Recalling his visit to Gaza in January, he said he witnessed a “staggering decline in conditions of children” amid widespread destruction, a “quasi blockage on the north of Gaza” and repeated denials for or delays in granted access of humanitarian convoys.   “Attacks on humanitarian workers have also gravely affected humanitarian access with the highest UN staff death toll in our history, our UNRWA colleagues in particular, and new attacks this week with the death of our World Central Kitchen colleagues, killing humanitarian workers trying to feed starving people,” Mr. Chaiban said.   As a result of these constraints, children cannot access age-appropriate nutritious food or medical services and have less than two to three litres of water per day, he said.   “The consequences have been clear,” he warned. “In March, we reported that one in three children under two years of age in the northern Gaza Strip suffer from acute malnutrition, a figure that has more than doubled in the last two months.”   Dozens of children in the northern Gaza Strip have reportedly died from malnutrition and dehydration in recent weeks and half the population is facing catastrophic food insecurity, he stressed.   In Sudan, the world’s worst child displacement crisis, the violence and blatant disregard for permission to allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance essential to protect children from the impact of conflict in Darfur, in Kordofan, in Khartoum and beyond has greatly intensified their suffering, he said.   “We are seeing record levels of admissions for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) – the deadliest form of malnutrition,” the UN deputy chief explained, “but insecurity is preventing patients and health workers from reaching hospitals and other health facilities.”   Assets and staff are still being attacked, and the health system remains overwhelmed resulting in severe shortage of medicines and supplies, including lifesaving items, due to the severe interruption of the supply management system.   “Our inability to consistently access vulnerable children means protection by presence is simply not possible and that risks of other grave violations may escalate without an attendant rise in our ability to monitor or respond,” he said.   He called on the Security Council to use its influence to prevent and end the denial of humanitarian access to children, protect humanitarian workers and allow aid agencies to safely reach those in most need, across frontlines and across borders.   http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/2024/06/2023-alarming-levels-of-violence-inflicted-on-children-in-situation-of-armed-conflict/ http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/06/1151001 http://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148221 http://www.globalr2p.org/publications/atrocity-alert-401/ http://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/arb724db54 http://reliefweb.int/report/world/2024-statement-members-ngo-working-group-protection-civilians   * UN WebTV: Children and Armed Conflict - Coverage of UN Security Council meeting: Addressing the consequences of the denial of humanitarian access for children: http://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1h/k1ho967mpv   Feb. 2024   The world is waging war on its children, in an obscene mockery of international law. (Agencies)   Callous disregard for civilian lives and safety is a disturbing feature of modern armed conflict. From Ukraine and Gaza to Sudan and Myanmar, respect for the “laws of war” is being eroded or is non-existent. Non-combatants are deliberately targeted. Most shocking, and unforgivable, is the wanton harm – the UN term is “grave violations” – done to children.   In his latest report on children and conflict, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres warned that children “continued to be gravely affected” by war-related violence and abuses. By this, he meant killing and maiming, rape, sexual violence, abductions, school attacks and recruitment of child soldiers. All were on the rise, he said.   Some examples: Myanmar’s civil war brought a 140% increase in grave violations in 2022. In South Sudan, intercommunal violence played havoc with children’s lives. Countries with the highest UN-recorded totals of abuses were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Israel-Palestine, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Yemen. Guterres’s report was compiled before the Gaza war erupted.   The tsunami of misery makes a mockery of international law, specifically the Geneva conventions. “In all wars, it’s children who suffer first and suffer most,” Unicef says. “Even wars have rules. No child should be cut off from essential services... No child should be held hostage... Hospitals and schools must be protected from bombings… The cost to children will be borne by generations to come.”   In 2022 alone, the United Nations verified 27,180 violations affecting children which were committed in 24 situations and one regional arrangement. The most prevalent violation of 2022 was the killing and maiming of children, while the number of attacks on schools and hospitals showed an unprecedented increase of 112% compared to the previous year. As sobering as the 2022 figures were, they felt pale when contrasted with the dramatic increase in violations against children during 2023.   Armed violence has worryingly increased in many ongoing conflicts including in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Myanmar, Niger, Somalia, Sudan, and most recently in Israel and the State of Palestine.   In Sudan, children have been facing intense hostilities since April, and are subjected to raids, and airstrikes by parties to conflict, resulting in shocking accounts of widespread killing and maiming of children and sexual violence against girls, including rape.   Thousands of children in and around Khartoum, the Darfur states, the Blue Nile, and the Kordofan regions are disproportionately affected by the actions of armed forces and armed groups. Parties to conflict in Sudan must prioritize a cessation of hostilities and a return to peace if children are to be spared further suffering.   Children in the Sahel and Lake Chad basin continue to be victims of armed conflict. Children are raped, abducted, and recruited by armed forces and armed groups, particularly girls, while schools and hospitals are attacked and destroyed. In Haiti, armed groups and gangs are increasingly targeting children and committing all six grave violations against children in doing so.   The use of explosive ordnance, including improvised explosive devices, landmines, and explosive remnants of war, continues to be one of the main causes of child casualties, particularly when used in densely populated areas. Those weapons fiercely and indiscriminately target children in many countries around the world. The situation for children remains very dire particularly due to the impact of explosive ordnance, in Colombia, Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic, and Ukraine.   Russia’s illegal abduction of thousands of children after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine is another way of waging war on the most vulnerable. Kyiv has documented almost 20,000 cases out of a possible 200,000. They form the basis of war crimes charges brought against Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, by the international criminal court.   “Russia is actively erasing their Ukrainian identity and inflicting unbelievable emotional and psychological damage,” Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkevics, told a conference devoted to “Russia’s war on children” in Riga this month.   Less watched conflicts and emergencies are equally destructive of children’s lives. Last week saw belated focus on the crisis gripping drought-stricken northern Ethiopia following the war in Tigray. More than 3 million people there face acute hunger. Younger children and babies are most at risk in a country where 45% of the 126m-strong population is aged under 15   “Veterans of relief operations are comparing the crisis to the situation in 1984, when a combination of drought and war caused a famine that killed up to a million people,” wrote regional expert Alex de Waal. “The UN estimates that more than 20 million Ethiopians are in need of food aid.”   The forcible recruitment of children by armed groups, terrorists and criminal gangs is another global growth area. The UN says more than 105,000 children, boys and girls, were involved in violent conflicts between 2005 and 2022, although the actual figure is probably much higher. Child soldiers are not only made to fight. They are also used as guards, lookouts and couriers, and are exploited sexually.   In Myanmar, Burkina Faso and Mali, attacks on schools and hospitals are increasing, the UN says. Denial of humanitarian access is another lethal problem. And so it goes on. A world war on children? How did it come to this?   http://www.unicef.org/children-under-attack http://www.unicef.org/topics/humanitarian-action-and-emergencies http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/stop-the-war-on-children-let-children-live-in-peace/ http://data.stopwaronchildren.org http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/2023/11/nothing-to-celebrate-on-worlds-childrens-day http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/11/end-killing-children-armed-conflict-un-committee-urges http://alliancecpha.org/en/TheUnprotected2023 http://blogs.prio.org/2023/12/more-and-more-children-at-risk-of-conflict/ http://www.ipsnews.net/2024/02/imperative-protect-children-war/ http://watchlist.org/resources/advocacy-resources/ http://plan-international.org/publications/still-we-dream http://www.savethechildren.net/news/grave-violations-against-children-must-stop-statement-save-children-ceo-inger-ashing http://reliefweb.int/report/world/child-trafficking-and-armed-conflict http://medvind.arkon.no/1824624/9065535.html http://reliefweb.int/report/afghanistan/children-and-armed-conflict-report-secretary-general-a77895-s2023363-enarruzh http://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/protected-persons/civilians http://www.icrc.org/en/document/we-can-elevate-protection-of-children-in-armed-conflict-as-political-priority http://www.msf.org/war-and-conflict http://www.msf.org/war-and-conflict-depth http://protectingeducation.org/ http://www.unhcr.org/emergencies/ongoing-emergencies http://www.acaps.org/en/thematics/all-topics/humanitarian-access http://www.ipcinfo.org/ipc-country-analysis/en/ Visit the related web page
	Annual profits from forced labour amount to US$ 236 billion by International Labour Organization (ILO), agencies   Forced labour in the private economy generates US$236 billion in illegal profits per year, a new report from the International Labour Organization (ILO) has found.   The total amount of illegal profits from forced labour has risen by US$64 billion (37 per cent) since 2014, a dramatic increase that has been fuelled by both a growth in the number of people forced into labour, as well as higher profits generated from the exploitation of victims.   The ILO report, Profits and Poverty: The economics of forced labour, estimates that traffickers and criminals are generating close to US$10,000 per victim, up from US$8,269 (adjusted for inflation) a decade ago.   Total annual illegal profits from forced labour are highest in Europe and Central Asia (US$84 billion), followed by Asia and the Pacific (US$62 billion), the Americas (US$52 billion), Africa (US$20 billion), and the Arab States (US$18 billion).   When illegal profits are expressed per victim, annual illegal profits are highest in Europe and Central Asia, followed by the Arab States, the Americas, Africa and Asia and the Pacific.   Forced commercial sexual exploitation accounts for more than two-thirds (73 per cent) of the total illegal profits, despite accounting for only 27 per cent of the total number of victims in privately imposed labour.   These numbers are explained by the huge difference in per victim profits between forced commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of non-state forced labour exploitation – US$27,252 profits per victim for the former against US$3,687 profits per victim for the latter.   After forced commercial sexual exploitation, the sector with the highest annual illegal profits from forced labour is industry, at US$35 billion, followed by services (US$20.8 billion), agriculture (US$5.0 billion), and domestic work (US$2.6 billion). These illegal profits are the wages that rightfully belong in the pockets of workers but instead remain in the hands of their exploiters, as a result of their coercive practices.   There were 27.6 million people engaged in forced labour on any given day in 2021. This figure translates to 3.5 people for every thousand people in the world. Between 2016 and 2021 the number of people in forced labour increased by 2.7 million.   “People in forced labour are subject to multiple forms of coercion, the deliberate and systematic withholding of wages being amongst the most common. Forced labour perpetuates cycles of poverty and exploitation and strikes at the heart of human dignity. We now know that the situation has only got worse. The international community must urgently come together to take action to end this injustice, safeguard workers' rights, and uphold the principles of fairness and equality for all,” stated ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo.   The report stresses the urgent need for investment in enforcement measures to stem illegal profit flows and hold perpetrators accountable.   It recommends strengthening legal frameworks, providing training for enforcement officials extending labour inspection into high-risk sectors, and better coordination between labour and criminal law enforcement.   Yet forced labour cannot be ended through law enforcement measures alone, enforcement actions must be part of a comprehensive approach that prioritizes addressing root causes and safeguarding victims, underlines the report.   The Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 , and the Forced Labour (Supplementary Measures) Recommendation, 2014 (No. 203) provide a strategic framework for comprehensive action.   * Note the ILO figures are very conservative estimations and an underestination of the true scale of the realities.   http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_920143/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm http://www.ilo.org/publications/major-publications/profits-and-poverty-economics-forced-labour http://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/12/un-experts-urge-shift-towards-human-rights-economy-prevent-contemporary-forms http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-slavery http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-trafficking-in-persons http://apnews.com/hub/forced-labor http://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/ http://www.antislavery.org/slavery-today/forced-labour/ http://www.ituc-csi.org/modern-slavery-figures-2022 http://www.iom.int/news/50-million-people-worldwide-modern-slavery http://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2022/09/special-rapporteur-right-development-covid-19-pandemic-triggered-largest-global   Mar. 2024   U.S. court shields tech giants, ignoring child labor abuse in cobalt supply chains - Freedom United, International Rights Advocates   A recent U.S. court ruling found America’s biggest tech companies, Apple, Alphabet Inc. (parent company of Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla cannot be held responsible for child labor found in their cobalt supply chains.   The court stated that the companies had an “ordinary buyer-seller transaction” with their suppliers in the DRC. This 3-0 decision is a setback for advocacy groups looking to hold big businesses accountable for modern slavery found in their supply chains.   Cobalt is a critical mineral in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles and electronic devices and the DRC has over 70% of the world’s cobalt reserves. Recently, the demand for cobalt has grown exponentially as countries try to make a green transition and become carbon neutral.   Reuters reports that according to the complaint:   “Companies ‘deliberately obscured’ their dependence on child labor, including many children pressured into work by hunger and extreme poverty, to ensure their growing need for the metal would be met.”   The plaintiffs include four former miners and legal representatives of child miners who lost their lives or suffered major injuries while mining cobalt in the DRC.   ABC News reports that the plaintiffs accused the 5 tech giants of “knowingly benefitting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in the DRC to mine cobalt.”   Moreover, they claim that the defendants “know and have known for a significant period of time” about the multiple types and well-documented human rights violations in the cobalt mining supply chain of the DRC.   The ruling stated that many actors in the cobalt supply chain perpetuated labor trafficking and abuse, from labor brokers to the DRC government. However, the court found that issuing an injunction to these 5 companies would not stop child labor from entering the supply chain as the injunction would not hold the direct perpetrators of child labor and abuse accountable.   Contrary to the court’s opinion, advocacy groups and the plaintiffs feel absolving the companies sends the wrong message.   Terry Collingsworth, a lawyer for the plaintiffs and Executive Director of IRAdvocates stated:   “This decision provides a strong incentive to avoid any transparency with their suppliers, even as they promise the public they have ‘zero tolerance’ policies against child labor.”   Despite the ruling, Collingsworth said they were “far from finished seeking accountability.”.. "This decision, though disappointing, will not deter us from our mission to protect vulnerable children and ensure that multinational corporations do not benefit from forced labor and human trafficking".   When asked for comment, Dell released a statement saying it was committed to upholding the human rights of workers throughout its supply chain and did not knowingly source products made with child labor. Google had no comment and Apple, Microsoft, Tesla remained silent.   Freedom United stands with the plaintiffs in accusing the five companies of joining exploitative and abusive cobalt suppliers in a “forced labor” venture and in seeing them as complicit in the crimes through the purchase of child labor tainted cobalt.   Freedom United stands beside the plaintiffs in this case asking for tech giants to ensure slavery-free supply chains. Too often private and public sectors are not held accountable for the human rights abuses in their supply chains.   http://www.freedomunited.org/news/us-court-clears-tech-giants-of-child-labor/ http://www.internationalrightsadvocates.org/cases/cobalt http://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/iradvocates-files-forced-child-labor-case-against-tech-giants-apple-alphabet-dell-microsoft-and-tesla-for-aiding-and-abetting-extreme-abuse-of-children-mining-cobalt-in-drc http://icar.ngo/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ICAR_CorporateAccountabilityReport_v4.pdf
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