syria-un-20130205 79

A/HRC/22/59 GE.13-10627 79 Annex X [English only] Violations of children’s rightsa 1. Forty-four percent of Syria’s population were under 18 in 2010. In the protracted conflict that has overtaken their country since then, children have faced widespread violations of their rights. Children of both sexes have been unlawfully killed and wounded; they have been subjected to, and possibly singled out for, sexual violence. They have been subjected to other forms of torture in detention facilities, checkpoints and during military and security force operations. 2. Parties to the conflict have undermined children’s rights to health and education, putting hospitals and schools at the front line of the conflict and reversing painstaking gains in social services over many decades. 3. Children’s lives have been misshapen by violence, political and sectarian polarisation, impoverishment and the enforced isolation and idleness that conflict creates. Many have fled the country as a result. Others have been drawn into the hostilities. Both parties have used children in hostilities, exposing them to and implicating them in intense violence. The commission is particularly concerned about many reports of anti-Government armed groups enlisting children for active participation in the conflict. I. Government forces and affiliated militia A. Unlawful killings 4. The commission has documented a substantial number of deliberate and indiscriminate attacks, and disproportionate attacks where civilian casualties were clearly in excess of the anticipated military advantage. Fifty interviewees described the death and injury to children during shelling and aerial bombardments by Government forces. The use of artillery and air power against refugee camps, bakeries, schools, village houses and other everyday locales; and the use of excessive force against demonstrators by Government forces is well documented. Street fighting, house-to-house attacks and massacresb have devastated contested areas such as peri-urban Damascus and Homs, or rural Dara’a and Idlib. B. Sexual violence 5. Victims of sexual violence have little incentive to report on the crimes committed against them. They may face stigma, alienation or worse from their families. There are few services to help them, and perpetrators of sexual violence apparently enjoy impunity. For these reasons, clear evidence of sexual violence against children is scarce, but there are troubling indications that conflict has deepened the vulnerability of both girls and boys to such violence. Several accounts from victims and witnesses illustrated this trend.c a This report uses the terms “children, boys and girls” to denote people under 18 year of age. See A/HRC/21/50, Annex II for the applicable law. b A/HRC/22/59, annex IV. c Ibid., annex IX