We welcome the signing of new joint action plans on prevention earlier this year, including in Yemen with Houthis and in Iraq and call on their full implementation.We also reiterate the importance of unimpeded and safe access. They are the eyes and ears in terms of child protection and help in preventing grave violations. We recognize the importance of the work of the office of the SRSG for CAAC, UNICEF and all UN child protection actors on monitoring and verifying data, we also appreciate the contributions of civil society organizations in this regard. We wish to highlight the following points. The EU remains determined to prevent and address the impacts of conflicts on children worldwide. We call on States to bring to justice all those responsible, and encourage cooperation with international justice mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court. A zero tolerance to violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law needs to be upheld. We therefore urge all parties to all conflicts worldwide to cease any violations, and for violators to be held to account. Under international law, States have the primary responsibility to protect, respect, and fulfil children’s rights, both in times of peace and in times of war. Especially when it is not only non-State armed groups that have been verified as perpetrators of grave violations, but as is the case for Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, a regular state army. we can never allow children to be the victims of conflict. This is an unacceptably high number and we are dismayed about the increasing numbers of killing and maiming, recruitment of children, attacks on schools and hospitals and abductions, as well as the cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence against children, notably girls that are still underreported. We are deeply alarmed of the 27,180 grave violations verified in 2022 against 18,890 children in armed conflicts around the world. We welcome the 2023 report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict. The Candidate Countries North Macedonia *, Montenegro *, Albania *, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Bosnia and Herzegovina *, the potential candidate country Georgia, as well as Monaco and San Marino align themselves with this statement. I have the honour to deliver this statement on behalf of the European Union and its Member States.
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