The International Day of UN Peacekeepers presents an opportunity to highlight the significant contribution of UN peacekeeping to protecting children in situations of armed conflict, as well as the need to ensure that adequate resources are made available for specialized Child Protection staff in peacekeeping operations – both civilian and uniformed – to carry out this important work.
The COVID-19 crisis heightens the imperative for having well-equipped and resourced Child Protection staff to be able to continue the documentation of grave violations against children and the dialogue with armed forces and armed groups for the purposes of ending and preventing these violations. The current crisis also emphasizes the ‘whole-of-mission’ nature of the Child Protection mandate in peacekeeping as a joint responsibility of both civilian and uniformed components, especially as the monitoring, reporting and outreach capacity of civilian Child Protection staff is curtailed due to COVID-19-related restrictions.
This virtual side event will focus on good practices in the joint implementation of the Child Protection mandate by both UN civilian, military and police peacekeepers, in order to highlight the critical need for adequately resourced specialized Child Protection functions and political space for civilian Child Protection Advisers and uniformed Child Protection Focal Points within UN peacekeeping missions. Member States who are troop and police contributors, relevant parts of the UN system and civil society will join in a panel discussion to comment on their experiences.