Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Violence against Children released a document about children previously affiliated with extremist groups. During the period of 2009-2017 almost 4.640 foreign children joined ISIS in Iraq and Syria and all around the world approximately 1.5 million children are deprived of their liberty on the grounds of armed conflict. Since then, there has been a strong dilemma on the hierarchy of rights and values a state must protect. In recent years, governments have been forced to choose, prima face, between children rights and their domestic security/ counterterrorism. According to them, UN’s guidelines are contradictory to each other and overall difficult to be implemented. Anyway, things are not always as they seem, so in the attached material you will understand the main standpoints of the UN and the solutions it offers to the stakeholders.
Based on the document you will find a set of recommendations to improve the situation. Some of the key recommendations are:
- Children should not be punished for their membership on the non-state armed forces, instead, they should be accorded the victim status, without forgetting to punish those who have committed crimes and meet the age criteria.
- States should respect international imperatives and bind their obligations related to child protection.
- States should try the rehabilitation approach to children in conflict with the law and make decision based on children’s best interests.
- Restorative justice (a system of criminal justice that focuses on the rehabilitation of offenders through reconciliation with victims and the community at large) is one of the best means to resolve the issue.