On World Childrens Day: Stop the Killing, Displacement, and Destruction of the Lives and Future of Sudanese Children
Faisal Al-Baqer
First Orbit
"On this day, Monday, November 20, 2023, the world celebrates World Childrens Day, observed on November 20th every year. This years celebration comes under the theme Every Child, Every Right, providing children with full enjoyment of their rights. Last year, on November 20, 2022, the celebration carried the theme Inclusion for Every Child. The history of this day dates back to 1954, the glorious day when Universal Childrens Day was declared, as recommended by the United Nations General Assembly. The journey of earnest efforts to respect and enhance childrens rights worldwide continued, and in 1959, the expanded version of the text was adopted, adding ten new principles to reinforce childrens rights.
The greatest day and the biggest triumph came on November 20, 1989, with the approval of the United Nations General Assembly for the Convention on the Rights of the Child under human rights treaties, recognizing civil, political, economic, social, health, and cultural rights for children. All countries were invited to ratify and comply with international human rights law. However, the road ahead remains long for global efforts to achieve more rights, well-being, and protection for children, especially in a world destroyed by wars, where children are forcibly deprived of peace, security, safety, tranquility, and the legitimate dream of a happy future.
Then came the Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2020, aimed at increasing protection for children from violence during armed conflicts, as well as from sale and exploitation in prostitution and pornography. In 2014, a third Optional Protocol allowing children to directly file complaints to the Committee on the Rights of the Child was adopted.
There are also regional mechanisms working in the same UN direction to promote the rights of children, which we have not addressed in this article dedicated to the UN Convention and its Optional Protocols concerning the rights of children in times of armed conflict. We may return to these mechanisms to mention them on other occasions, with the most important being the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child issued in 1990 by the Organization of African Unity at that time, which later became the African Union, and it started being enforced on November 29, 1999.
All these international efforts to enhance the Convention on the Rights of the Child with its Optional Protocols aim to protect children during wars and armed conflicts, ensuring their protection from recruitment into armies and militias—some call them armed movements—and guaranteeing protection from sale and exploitation, including sexual exploitation, during conflicts. This is in addition to enabling children to file complaints with the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as mentioned earlier. This committee is the non-judicial international supervisory body responsible for monitoring the implementation of the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols. Its tasks are binding on the States Parties to the Convention, which must comply with its procedures (Article 44 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child).
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We state this, and we will not forget to remind that Sudan is a country that ratified the "Convention on the Rights of the Child" and the "African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child," which came into effect on November 29, 1999. In light of all this, both parties involved in the catastrophic war in Sudan since April 15, 2022, bear full legal responsibility and all consequences of non-compliance with the protection of children according to the "International Human Rights Law" in times of peace and according to the "International Humanitarian Law" during wars and armed conflicts. This means refraining from recruiting or exploiting children in any form during the war.
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Simply put, the responsibility for increasing the protection of children during armed conflicts lies with the warring parties in Sudan since April 15, 2022, without the slightest respect for the rights of children. This constitutes a blatant and explicit violation of the rights of children, making the perpetrators of these crimes accountable under international human rights law, including both international human rights law and international humanitarian law. These crimes against childhood in Sudan will not go unnoticed, regardless of how much time passes.
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Yes, I write this on the morning of Monday, November 20, 2023, seven months and five days since the eruption of the grinding "militia" war between (the Rapid Support Forces and the army), which undoubtedly deprived and continues to deprive millions of children of the right to life, education, health, including mental health, the right to treatment, and the right not to use children in war. This is stated despite numerous professionally documented reports on the exploitation of children in the grinding "militia" war, war crimes that go unpunished, without war parties feeling any responsibility towards the children of Sudan, their present, and their shattered future due to this losing war.
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We still remember how the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) warned in periodic reports, the first of which came a month after the outbreak of war, documenting the killing of 190 children in those days. Today, after seven and a half months, we ask the same question. The old and renewed question. How many children have died and continue to die after more than seven months? How many were deprived of the right to health and mental health? How many were deprived of the right to life, education, or safe housing? How many girls were sold in the new markets discussed in documented reports? How many children under eighteen were used as fuel in this disastrous war? How many missing children, and what is their fate? Where are they now, and in what difficult conditions do they suffer? How much... and how much... and how much? These are legitimate questions that will continue to haunt the war generals of the "militia" until judgment day.
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On World Childrens Day, let us conclude with the justified question to the faces of the war generals: Has a single child of yours died due to air raids, indiscriminate shelling of homes, streets, and markets, or the fires of cannons and drones that you spend on more killing and forced displacement? Or are they playing in your fortified headquarters? Is seven months and a half enough for your favorite slogan, empty words, and false promises about the approaching "hour of victory" in the losing war, which some of you call the "war of dignity"? What dignity are you looking for over the skulls and limbs of Sudanese children? On the other hand, some of you claim it is a war to defend democracy and the transition.
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For which victory and triumph are you searching over the skulls of children and their scattered limbs in all the fronts of your losing battles? What nonsense are you uttering while Sudanese children die, groups and individuals, without you batting an eye or shedding a tear? Let us raise our voices loudly against war and demand its cessation today, before tomorrow. Sudanese children are the seeds of their future that we seek and look forward to being.
Final Note:
"He who knows war does not approach its grave. The wind blows, and sulfur ignites. War is fire, and when its fires ignite, no one looks at it. We, the peoples, are its victims. Alas, we are exhausted, and the country is lost without us." - Najib Mohamed Ali.
Faisal Al-Baqer
faisal.elbagir@gmail.com
