Mirna Shalash, Executive Director of the Partners for Transparency Foundation, gave an oral intervention on the situation of children in Syria and Yemen before the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva during the presentation of the report of the Special Rapporteur on Children and Armed Conflict, during the 46th session of the Human Rights Council

For her part, Mirna Shalash welcomed the efforts aimed at limiting the spread of forced recruitment of children in armed conflicts, and affirmed the permanent support provided by the Sharakah Foundation for all plans and strategies that the Special Rapporteur adopts in this context, as part of her keenness to promote the values of integrity, transparency and good governance. .

Mirna Shalash condemned the continued recruitment of children in armed conflicts in both Yemen and Syria, in contravention of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, and also violates the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child from preventing the recruitment of children under the age of eighteen in any armed conflict.

In Yemen, a report in February 2021 revealed that the number of children who had been forcibly recruited by the Houthi group, since their coup to power in 2014, had reached about 10,300 children, and the number of children killed during the wars the group fought during July and August of 2020 reached 111.

The Partners Foundation also denounced what children are exposed to in Syria, as child recruitment is one of the most prominent violations of human rights in the Syrian conflict. During the year 2019, about 820 children and girls were monitored forcibly recruited during the year, and the age of about 25% of them did not exceed 15 years.

In the end, the Partners for Transparency Foundation recommended the necessity of forming a committee that would address the recruitment of children in armed conflict, as well as laying out appropriate strategies for the rehabilitation of these children who have fallen at the risk of these violations, and stressed the importance of imposing sanctions on countries that are proven to be involved in such violations. Violations.