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23rd July 2012Children in Syria are paying a huge price for the lack of success of ongoing diplomatic negotiations, according to War Child chief executive Rob Williams.
A new report from the charity, "Syria: A War on Childhood", reveals the shocking scale of brutality in Syria, as children are deliberately targeted.
Williams told Central Lobby that the record of the conflict so far shows that as opposition forces get stronger and government sources possibly begin to breakdown in terms of discipline, the situation for children is only going to deteriorate.
" As the violence continues to escalate, children are going to be drawn into the conflict as combatants, so it is ultimately another downward spiral in terms of their involvement in the conflict."
The report reveals that every one of six UN-recognised violations against children including killing and maiming; recruitment as child soldiers; rape and abduction and; attacks on schools and hospitals; is being breached by those involved in the conflict.
Information for the report was obtained from agencies such as Human Rights Watch, as well as War Child's own aid workers on the ground in North Lebanon.
In terms of the response to the crisis from the international community Williams finds fault with the largely nominal gestures:
"The peace plan made sense in principle, but the diplomacy around Syria has failed. It has shown a real lack of leadership.
"Whilst we understand that it is very difficult, I think we can still be very disappointed that a year after the conflict got really serious there has been no real step forward in concerted peaceful political action."
War Child is calling on the UK government to honour its commitments and place child protection and rehabilitation into its current negotiating efforts and future planning for the country.
Williams would like to see observer missions have a much clearer mandate to report on child protection issues and a special report on the impact of the conflict on children in Syria.
He denotes that the UK is best placed amongst the international diplomatic community to help find a ground that Russia and America can both stand on and agree a position.
War Child is working on the border between Lebanon and Syria (in Lebanon). As an aid provider, the charity has projects that help children who manage to flea the violence and get across the border.
However Williams would like to see NGOs have access to Syria and become operational to "start delivering some basic child protection assistance".
Williams recognises the long-term effect that the war is going to have on a generation of children, and the need for added spending in the future.
"Cities like Homs have been devastated, schools have been targeted and hospitals have been destroyed.
"So I think for every £1 we spend in the first year of recovery we need to spending £4 or £5 more to support longer term rehabilitation work."
Overall Williams calls the war a "global scandal" that the international community is failing to stop.
"What it really means is that children in one country can't depend on the adults in another country to protect them if things go wrong in their own country. That points to a need to reassess how the international community works when presented with a crisis like this one."