Vanessa Frazier (Special Representative) on the Secretary-General's Annual Report on Children and Armed Conflict - Press Conference

All right. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this briefing. We're very pleased to have with us Vanessa Fraser, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflict. And you should see that at the entryway to this room, there are copies of the English text of this year's report on children in armed conflict.. And Ms. Fraser will talk to you about that right now.

Welcome. Thank you. Actually, this is not the report. This is a subsidiary document, a supplementary analysis.

So we take the data that is in the report and we have analyzed it per country situation and also given some context, not only of the situations we're reporting on, but context about the mandates that you can understand when reading what is in the Secretary-General's report. So it's, it's, it's an accompanying reading guide.

Um, good morning and thank you for being here. I'm pleased to be with you to present the findings of the Secretary-General's annual report on children in armed conflict for the year 2025. Today's findings are stark. They reflect the shocking reality faced by children in conflict zones around the world. A reality that concerns all of us. In 2025, the United Nations verified 38,558 grave violations that affected 24,174 children. The numbers cover the 22 country situations and the one regional monitoring arrangement included in the Children and Armed Conflict report, This is the highest number of children affected by grave violations since the establishment of the CAC mandate 30 years ago. As I recently assumed the responsibilities of Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, I am alarmed by both the scale of suffering and the blatant disregard for the protection of children in times of war. Day after day, this mandate bears witness to an unrelenting stream of horrors inflicted on children.

Children.

These horrors should shock the conscience of the international community. The violations we report on are: recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access to children. Which are the 6 grave violations against children in armed conflict as identified by the UN Security Council. This year, the report presents grave violations whose process of verification was undertaken in 2025, therefore including violations that have taken place in previous years, previously called late verifications. This gives us a more complete picture of the extent of the suffering of children, as all violations are equally important in illustrating the suffering inflicted on children in armed conflict. Thank you. Armed conflict. It also aligns with other UN reports. It is important to note that all verified violations included in this report in front of you are accounted for for the first time. In 2025, the number of children victims of violence in armed conflict reached unprecedented levels. Children were disproportionately affected by sustained hostilities, intensification of attacks, air strikes and drone strikes, violations of ceasefires, forced displacement, peace agreements, and worsening humanitarian conditions compounded by climate insecurity. Parties to conflict have employed tactics that included attacks on children, the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, and the systematic, systematic exploitation of children in hostilities, —including as fighters and for sexual purposes. For the first time since the establishment of the Children Armed Conflict mandate, Government forces were responsible for the majority of the grave violations. In particular, Government forces remained the principal perpetrators of killing and maiming of children, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access. These patterns reflect persistent and blatant disregard for international law and for the rights and special protections owed to children. Across all contexts, parties to conflict failed to uphold or proactively undermined their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law, resulting in dire consequences for civilians and civilian objects. Thank you. Disproportionately affecting children and the facilities and services they rely upon. 14,224 children were verified killed or maimed as the most prevalent violation. The number of children killed increased by 35% compared to 2024 to reach 6,266. This is followed by 8,322 incidents of denial of humanitarian access across 6,607 cases of recruitment and use of children in armed conflict. Across several conflicts, parties denied or restricted the delivery of assistance and attacked or obstructed aid convoys, thus impeding principled— Ob— operations. Sexual violence against children, especially girls, continued to be used as a tactic of war to humiliate, terrorize, and displace entire communities, with an increase in case of gang rape committed by parties to conflict, pointing to a deliberate and organized use of sexual violence within the ranks. Children, especially girls, were being targeted and abused as part of the conduct of hostilities. Disabilities. The consequences are severe and long-lasting. Survivors suffer immediate physical and psychological trauma, as well as stigma and exclusion from their communities. Countries with the highest levels of violations in 2025 were the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar, and Somalia. I want to pause for a moment to take this moment to let these numbers I shared sink in. Behind these statistics are a son, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a student, a newborn, a parent's entire world, lives, dreams, stories, and futures cut off short by man-made wars— sorry. The lives of these The deaths of 24,174 children are as many scars on our collective moral conscience. I hope we carry them with us so that we use their memory and their pain to act. Let me go back to the report. I want to emphasize that the findings of the report were documented amid extraordinary adversity and insecurity, including the abduction and killing of humanitarian and United Nations personal at an unprecedented scale. Some 325 humanitarian workers were killed in conflicts— in conflict settings across 18 countries in 2025. Faced with this unbearable situation, the United Nations has continued to engage in delivering progress for children affected by armed conflict. 13,112 children who had exited from armed forces or groups were supported by UNICEF and partners with protection, care, family tracing, reunification, and reintegration support, including in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Colombia, the Dominican Republic of the Congo, Mozambique, and Nigeria. This brings the total number of children released from parties to conflicts since 2005 to more than 220,000. Release is only the first step of a long path towards full reintegration. Reintegration programs require sustained, predictable support, which age— with age-appropriate, gender-responsive, trauma-informed, and disability-inclusive services. Psychosocial support, healthcare, education, and livelihood opportunities are all essential to any meaningful peacebuilding effort. Engagement with parties to conflict also yielded progress this year, with some 40 commitments made by parties to conflict, including handover protocols, capacity-building initiatives, unilateral commitments, bilateral dialogues, and discussions around the signature of action plans in 3 countries on the CAC agenda. Thank you. My mandate is engaging with parties to conflict in a number of situations, including Sudan and Syria, to develop and sign action plans. I echo the urgent call of the Secretary-General for listed parties to complete, sign and implement action plans with the United Nations. As we mark the 30th anniversary of the Children and Armed Conflict mandate, we must intensify intensify our efforts and ensure that we have the resources and support needed to monitor and report grave violations, build capacity, pursue accountability, and prevent all grave violations against children. Several priorities are clear: All parties to conflict must respect the laws of war, the rights of the child, and recommit to the principles of the UN Charter. Perpetrators of grave violations must be held accountable, whether through national mechanisms or cooperation with international mechanisms. All human beings below the age of 18 must be considered as children, as per the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Children associated with armed groups must be recognized first and foremost as victims. Only then can we begin to break the cycles of harm that have defined the lives of children for too, for too long. Furthermore, it is essential that child protection frameworks are preserved and handed over during peace operation transitions in full accordance with Security Council Resolution 2764. The monitoring and reporting mechanism must be reinforced with predictable, flexible, multi-year funding to ensure its continuity and credibility. Child protection must be integrated across all mandates and processes, from early warning and media— and mediation to transitional justice, security sector reform, and disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration. Protecting children is not optional. I remind constantly it is a legal and moral obligation. Before we open the floor to questions, let me underline that my Office works to end and prevent all grave violations against children in close partnerships with Member States, international and regional organizations, DPO, DPPA, UNICEF, and the wider UN system, as well as civil society. I want to pay particular tribute to the child protection actors on the ground who carry out this work in extremely challenging and often dangerous conditions. Many face threats on a daily basis. I call on all parties to allow them to do their work, to protect children and deliver life-saving assistance. Their safety is essential and they need continued support from the international community. 30 years after the creation of the Children and Armed Conflict Mandate, The world can no longer claim ignorance. The scale and persistence of violations against children demand resolve, not rhetoric. Each member state must close— must choose dialogue over destruction and uphold its obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law. I leave final words to the ones at the heart of my mandate: children. Thank you. Because this report serves children. It gives information on how they are affected by conflict so that actions can be taken so that such incomprehensible violence stops. In the words of a child addressed— in the words of a letter of a child addressed to world leaders, which we received as part of our Prove It Matters campaign, this child wrote: Every day, children near active war zones get killed, tormented, sold, taken away from their families, traumatized, and denied humanitarian help. You have the power, so please act. Thank you, and I'm ready to take your answer to questions.

Okay, we'll turn over to the press now. Uh, Edie.

Thank you very much, Madam Fraser, on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association for doing this briefing. As you know, my name is Edith Lederer from the Associated Press. Um, two questions. First, um, the data show that for the first time there are more violations by government forces than by armed groups. What's responsible for that? What do you think's happened in the last year to change that? And my second question is, um, the data also show that the Israeli Defense Forces were responsible for the largest number of violations against children. Have you spoken to the Israeli government about this? Have you contacted them, and what's their reaction been? Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Edith. So, um, yes, unfortunately, government forces are responsible for the highest number of grave violations this year, and there are a number of reasons for this. It is— it reflects the impunity that we are seeing towards international law in general. This is not something new. It has been documented and discussed in many different fora. But also, um, the way warfare is being carried out has also shifted from battlefields to populated areas.

And not only has the location of war shifted, but also weapons that are used.

So wide area explosives are used, for example, in highly populated area. So obviously you have much more civilian casualties.

And because of this disdain towards international law, this is— These compounded issues are taking place because of— clearly, there are countries that have also suspended themselves from or withdrawn from weapons conventions also, like the Ottawa Convention, right, landmines convention, again, because we're throwing international law to the wind, and therefore they fear that these weapons can be used indiscriminately also in— populated areas. So this affects— it affects children, clearly.

So this is why when we do our advocacy, we advocate also for these weapon conventions. We advocate for the Landmines Convention, for Ottawa Convention. Clearly, it is— they have a direct consequence on our mandate and a direct consequence on the violations that children— and the lives of children.

This is why Killing and maiming is the highest one of the grave violations that we are reporting on also. Everything ties up.

So that is to answer the first question. And regarding Israel, when we are drafting our reports, each of the country's situations that we have listed receive an early advance copy of the draft transcript the initial draft.

And this is around— you know, this happens in the month of March. And there is a month of opportunity for discussions with each of the states to listen to their views, for them to try and counter with alternative evidence or data for us to see if we need to reexamine and reexamine some of the data that is verified. And this is a normal course of what goes on. There's open dialogue with each of the countries that are interested in discussing their entry into this report.

Thank you very much. Bisana Boukhouik with Al Jazeera Arabic.

Good to see you again. So the report has a warning to settlers that if attacks or violations against children will continue, they would be listed listed. Why have they not actually been listed? What's the methodology and the thinking behind that?

So in the—

of course, decisions for listings are the Secretary-General's decisions, right? This is the Secretary-General's report.

But he bases his decisions on various criteria, not defined, of course, but, you know, Even when you look at the Security Council mandates which define our mandate and which we implement, there are 14 Security Council resolutions. It says that we have to have trends and patterns. So the warn—

we have data for 2 consecutive years, and so there's a warning that if this goes on, this is a— will be a pattern, and therefore— and also something that I like to stress about our mandate is that we're not a human rights mandate, right? Not an accountability mandate. We are a peace and security mandate. So this report is here to inform us on what actions we need to take with the parties' consent in order to end and prevent grave violations against children. So there is a warning.

So if the perpetrators that are being warned are interested, there is the opportunity between now and next for us to enter into plans to see how these violations will stop and how we can protect children.

Because the focus is that—

the focus is not reporting and naming and shaming.

The focus is protecting children.

So this has—

this report gives us this coming year of space to have these negotiations with the perpetrators if they are interested in not being listed.

it.

Hi, my name is Ibtisam Azem, Al Arab Al-Jadeed newspaper. My follow-up— my question is actually a kind of the first question, at least follow-up on your answer, which is you listed the Israeli army forces for the second year on the annex, or as it's called by the press the list of shame, uh, and, uh, there seem to be no actually consequences. I mean, this year's— I mean, on your report you talk about 38,000, a little bit more than 38,000 violations worldwide, and the Israeli army is responsible almost, uh, for one-third, like almost one-third, more than 12,000. Violations against Palestinian children. So my question is, do you see that listing governments or armies, in this case Israel, it has any consequences? And what should countries do when it comes to weapons delivery and specifically third parties and companies who provide also this software, etc.? Thank you.

So the consequences are for member states to decide, not ours. So this is why in my opening statements, when I was delivering the results of this report, I said that this should be scars on our collective conscience, because we report, and then this report is supposed to be used as a tool for accountability, right, for ensuring that that countries and that parties do, but especially government forces, because when it is a non-state actor, it's a different matter. But when it is a state actor, here within the United Nations, we expect that United Nations member states ensure that their fellow member states here who are in these, listed for these grave violations, abide by the rule of law and by the UN Charter. So there are mechanisms within this exalted body— that member states can use, taking this report.

And so we pass now the ball on to them. That is their responsibility. Our responsibility is to draw up the data for them to act.

Just a quick follow-up, but as a matter of fact, these member states are not doing anything.

That is not a question you should pose to me. You can go to the Security Council, ask them why there aren't resolutions, for example, to impose immediate and unconditional ceasefires, why there aren't other resolutions to impose the non-use of certain weapons. These are members—

in the member states' hands, not in our hands.

It's not a question you can put to me.

I provide them with the data for them to be able to act.

And for what it's worth, I mean, as you can see from all of you being here, it really does matter to you who's on this list and who isn't. And nations governments fight very hard not to be on this list, so they're aware that it does have practical consequences for them, or otherwise it would be of no relevance.

And it is aggravate— is an— for me, it is an aggravated violation when it is a state actor that is on this list, because the states are supposed to be the one protecting children and abiding by rule of law. So it's not acceptable that there are 9 state actors listed. Irrespective of who they are and how bad they are.

Okay. Efraim.

Thank you. Efraim Kusaifi with Arab News Daily. Can you tell us, Ms. Fraser, what the Israeli government's reaction to the report has been? That's number one. Second, what specific factors led to the listing of Israel on the list exactly? And What benchmarks does Israel need to meet to be removed from the list? And if I may, I'm sorry, can you just give us an example, like compare the monitoring and reporting mechanism applied to Israel in comparison with, for example, Sudan or Ukraine? Were there any differences? Thank you.

No. Sorry. Thanks. So first of all, Israel hasn't been listed for the first time, and there was no new list listing of Israel this year, right? It's a continuation of a previous listing.

So, um, they did react to it, we know, and when there was an origin— the original listing, right? Um, and part of it was, you know, the usual attacks to the United Nations that we are a club which is anti-Israeli, which it is not. This report is not only about them, and I wish that even the questions we shouldn't focus only about them because we need to give other situations and children who are suffering in other situations just as much attention.

But their reaction is very public and in the media, and they're not interested in having real discussions with us.

But the only way, according to our mandate, that any listed party can be removed from the list is through entering into a commitment plan with the United Nations, which commitment— it's a time-bound commitment plan, which commitment plan has to be UN verified as having been implemented. Because again, I have to remind that our mandate is to end and prevent grave violations against children, and that can be done through the implementation of these commitments. So the commitments would be be, of course, commitments on how to protect children going forward, right? We do not do accountability. We don't look backwards.

The data is to help us moving forward.

That is the way this mechanism works. And there is no difference in the way the monitoring mechanism works in any of the situations that are on at all. There's one system, and it is defined in UN Security Council resolutions, and it is consistent across all the country teams that we have.

Thank you. We'll go online to Abdel Hamid.

Thank you so much, Madame Fraser. I have a few questions and I'll put them together and I hope you will have the time to answer them. My first question is about the percentage of increase, 35%. How much Israel bears of responsibility of that percentage increase? And the second, about the settlers. I raised exactly the same question last year with Miss Virginia Gamba, and she repeated the same answer about the trend. Can the SG see that there is a trend of settler violence which is increasing, and the year 2025 was the highest? And 2026 higher than the 2025. And I even mentioned to her two settlers' militias, one of them called the Children of the Hills, and one— and the other one called Revenge. And yet the settlers are not included. And my last question about you personally: Are you receiving any kind of hate speech? No. Accusing you of anti-Semite, Israeli hater, puppet for Hamas, and others? Thank you very much.

So to answer the last one, no, I am not. I mean, I, I report neutrally on all violators, and, and where I can, I can even try to exalt the countries that— and parties that work with us. This mandate has also had some successes.— from last year, there have been 3 situations that were removed from the list because they were countries that worked very well with the mandate to protect children— Iraq, Pakistan, and Philippines. So no is the short answer about hate speech. Thank goodness. I hope you don't— I hope nobody gets encouraged by this. With regards to settlers, I think that the Secretary-General has shown that he is aware what is going on because there's a warning, which is much more than there was last year. But this is the way this mandate works. This mandate is about protecting children, and the— having a listing doesn't necessarily result in the protection. The focus is with the warning there. We now have the possibility to actually enter into dialogue with— they have to understand You either, you know, change your ways or else, right? So this is the warning. It is a very important warning, and it shows that the Secretary-General understands what is going on there. With regard to the percentage, okay, I didn't come with a calculator, so I really don't know, but I mean, the data is there. But when I don't— so we have 38,000 grave violations which are documented. And from the total, not from the amount which are attributed to, to, to government forces, but from the total, about one-fourth of that is attributed to Israel.

Two-thirds of the killed are Palestinians from Gaza. The number, it's two-thirds or more.

Because I'm talking about the total grave violations. If we want to go, uh, by, by, by individual violations, then the percentages change. But the percentage of the total grave violations across the 6 grave violations across the 22, um, situations, it's about 1/4 attributable to the Israeli forces. Thank you.

Uh, one last question, then we'll wrap up. Yes.

I just want to ask a follow-up on Sudan, actually. And you have in the report about, if I'm not mistaken, around 1,900 violations. I think 1,800 and something. And I was a little bit surprised by the number because I thought it would be actually higher. Giving— and I know it's only verified cases, but I am wondering whether you are facing there specific— some challenges in collecting data, and if you can talk to that.

Yes, I mean, some of the challenges that our monitors face in the field are different according to the situation. Some are because there's lack of access by government forces and because of the situation, the security situation on the ground, but in places like Sudan, it's also, you know, when there are funding cuts, I mean, it comes to some very simple decisions sometimes. When you have a resident coordinator that in a country like Sudan, which is massive, has, you know, funding cuts, or UNICEF, you know, that has been cut drastically for the humanitarian action, and they have to decide from maybe the budget that they had. Now, I'm really shooting out numbers, but to make it— rounding up numbers to make it easy. But, for example, in their budget, they had a monthly budget for 10,000 gallons of fuel for their jeeps, and they have to decide, do I deliver humanitarian aid to the northeast side of the country, or do I go and verify a sexual violence allegation in the northwest of the country, sometimes they might have to decide which one they have to do, and they decide on which is, what is life-saving. It's as simple as that, because this is why we tell donors that the, and why I say this even in my statements, our partners on the ground also need to have funding. They need to have funding that, that is secured for them to carry out their work. Many of these countries are massively huge, and so they have to take these decisions. So Sudan is just one of these where the humanitarian deliveries so much more important, basically.

Sure. Hi, this is Gabriel Elzander from Al Jazeera English. I just want to ask you to step out of the data from the report for a second. And while you have a lot of experience with this report and on the Security Council in your former job, this is the first year that you've been in this position looking at this report and the data through this set of eyes. As you traveled gathering data and looking at the report and putting it together, what was one thing that surprised you? And as you were reading the report or your remarks, you paused for a moment to reflect, I think, a little bit. Where does that come from?

So when I go to the field, field, you know, I'm always— I always ensure that I don't only speak to the government actors, of course, that I actually go into the field also, not just in the capital, and that I speak to victims and I see the situation on the ground. And I mean, what children tell me— and I will only meet a few, a handful, you know, obviously, because I'm not there. God forbid if I had to— not because I wish I would be able to spend, you know, the time to speak to everybody that was a victim, of every child who's a victim, but I, I cannot because I would be in one country only, right? What they tell me are things that are shocking, no child should go through, and, and some of the violations are clearly ones that can be avoided, you know. And I'm going to be Now, here I'm going to speak very frankly, but we have state actors. State actors can take conscious decisions. If you are targeting a drone factory and you know that next to that drone factory there is a school, then you should use certain weaponry that will harm only the drone factory and not schools or hospitals or civilian housing which is close by. That is an operational decision that is taken by the army that has decided to carry out that attack, right? Some of these that we speak to tell me, but the school or the hospital was not our primary target. It was a drone factory nearby. That does not make a difference in our mandate because you actually could have chosen a method of operation that would have restricted the civilian consequences.

And I'm going to quote what President Trump himself said yesterday at the G7—

and I thank him very much— where he said, just because one Hezbollah target walks into an apartment building, you don't blow it all— don't blow up the whole apartment building, he said yesterday at the G7. He's right. Because he said— he qualified it. He said, because there are also others that live in that apartment building. These are operational decisions. That are taken at the time of making the operation. And so there are choices, there are choices. And the choice here is to not consider that there are going to be civilian— or not care about the consideration of civilian casualties.

And this is again reflective of the sign of the times that we are in, right? That there is this disdain towards international law and towards the protection of civilians. Yes. Civilians. And unfortunately, the numbers are stark and they show it. And it is really worrisome because many, many, many of the situations we are reporting on and the violations that children are, are, are being victims of can be avoided, can be avoided.

Even AI-assisted weaponry. That's why I state in my report we need to have more human oversight. You cannot send a drone into, I don't know, Gaza and say, look for a man who's 5.5 feet tall, olive skin, brown hair, and brown eyes, because it's every male there, right?

You have to have better data that you give to these weapons, right?

So these are human choices, though. Who is carrying out that operation is making these choices. Yes. We need to responsibilize them. They need to make better choices, choices that are in line with international humanitarian law and choices that protect civilians. According to international law, proportionality, right, is important also.

So, there.

And I do get emotional about it because I meet with the children and these children do not deserve what they are going through. The Liberian Foreign Minister, Nareese, in a recent open debate in the Security Council said a beautiful sentence. She said, "Today's children are suffering the consequences of our decisions, the devastating consequences of our decisions." And you know what? It should be the motto that we put on our front door because it is true.

They are suffering the consequences of—

Oh. The devastating consequences of the decision makers. I think for state actors it is worse than non-state actors, because this mandate was originally created really to target armed groups and non-state actors, ones who work outside of the law. We cannot have state actors who are supposed to work within the realms of the law now working outside the realms of the law.

That should not be something that is acceptable.

And with that, I'd like to thank—

Thank you.

Ms. Fraser, thanks very much for your presentation. And again, that was Vanessa Fraser, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Children in Armed Conflicts. Have a good morning.

Thank you.