#childrennotsoliders

Child Protection in a Resource-Constrained World: From Challenges in Financing to Innovative Solutions

2026 Annual Meeting for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action

Date: 9th to 11th of June 2026

Location: Online - Virtual Platform (Zoom)

"At a time when humanitarian needs are escalating while resources are tightening and the global legal and normative framework for protecting children due to increasing violations of international humanitarian and human rights law is under strain, collective reflection and exchange are critical to sustaining and strengthening child protection outcomes. In response to these challenges, the 2026 Annual Meeting will provide a dedicated space to share evidence, practice, and innovation that can support more effective and resilient child protection responses. The meeting will retain its global focus, while centering realities and solutions emerging at national and sub-national levels."

Find the latest version of the agenda and session summaries—updated on a rolling basis—on the dedicated webpage HERE

Voices from the field

"From Sierra Leone to Colombia, Somalia and Afghanistan, every year, conflict affects the lives of tens of thousands of boys and girls.

They are forced to join army or armed movement, abducted, used and abused, fuelling wars that they have not created.

They are Yenny, Kabba, they are Khaled and Mohamed.

Here are some of their stories."

Children, Not Soldiers

"Twenty years ago, the world united to condemn and take action against the use of children in armed conflict.

Since then, over 130,000 boys and girls have been released as a result of Action Plans mandated by the UN Security Council aimed at ending and preventing the recruitment and use of children in conflict."

Rethinking conservation through elephants’ sense of time and memory

"Historically, conservation has mostly focused on numbers like population and habitat size. However, in the mid-2000s, scientists started to investigate animal emotions, even trauma, when considering conservation success. In a recent Mongabay podcast, Khatijah Rahmat, a geographer at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, shared her research examining how elephants perceive and navigate time, often differently than humans do, and what that means for conserving them."

Running toward education: A former child soldier’s path to UBC Okanagan student athlete

"A South Sudanese refugee who ran towards education after being taken as a child soldier is now a University of British Columbia student and athlete, and he is just getting started."

“Running is therapy for me,” said Achuli.

Your Red Hand counts!

"Red Hand Day (February 12th) and the campaign to stop the use of child soldiers [have existed] for over 15 years. Hundreds and thousands of handprints have been collected in more than 50 countries and handed over to politicians and to responsible parties, including UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. There is progress, but there are still 250,000 child soldiers in the world."

Help to stop this abuse of children. Show your Red Hand to the world!

Our demands:

Straight 18: No child under the age of 18 may be used or trained in armies, armed groups or other military units

Punishment of those responsible

Care, protection and political asylum for former child soldiers

Expand financial support for aid programs for child soldiers

Stop of arms exports

Promotion of peace education

Stay tuned over the next week as the Dallaire Institute shares highlights of this important initiative and ways you can #RaiseYourRed to help end the practice of children being recruited and used as soldiers.

Photo credit HERE

From child soldiers to carpenters in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

"To mark IVD 2022, UN Volunteers lend support to APROJED under the Actions and Projects for Sustainable Development, an organization in Turunga, a Nyiragongo municipality on the outskirts of Goma.

This organization houses a training facility formed in 2006. Here, former child soldiers and vulnerable children are taught practical life skills, such as carpentry. So far, this training facility has trained and imparted vocational training to more than 600 children."

26 minutes: counting down for elephant conservation

"Every 26 minutes, on average, one African elephant dies for its ivory. This gloomy statistic is fueled by rampant poaching, by the land and water shortages that drive tense conflicts between people and animals, and by the stifling threats of climate change.

Yet, working together, we can achieve wonders in 26 minutes. That’s how long it takes for IFAW and our conservation partners to protect the life of an African elephant through the complex process of translocation, or movement from one place to another."

YOUTH BRIEFER CALLS FOR STRENGTHENED REINTEGRATION PROGRAMMING AND THE INCLUSION OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH IN DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES

"Youth advocate and former child soldier Patrick Kumi spoke on behalf of civil society and shared his experiences growing up during the armed conflict in South Sudan. Abducted, tortured, and forcibly recruited by an armed group, Patrick eventually fled to Uganda, where he received reintegration support. He participated in VoiceMore, a youth-led advocacy program of the NGO War Child. Patrick and his friends later founded the NGO Similar Ground, a refugee youth-led peacebuilding and advocacy community-based organization that empowers young refugees and hosts capacity-building initiatives."

Read: Statement by Patrick at the UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict

International Peace Day is September 21st

"We all have a role to play in fostering peace. And tackling racism is a crucial way to contribute. We can work to dismantle the structures that entrench racism in our midst. We can support movements for equality and human rights everywhere. We can speak out against hate speech – both offline and online. We can promote anti-racism through education and reparatory justice."

"The 2022 theme for the International Day of Peace is “End racism. Build peace.” We invite you to join the efforts of the United Nations as we work towards a world free of racism and racial discrimination. A world where compassion and empathy overcome suspicion and hatred. A world that we can truly be proud of."

In July, the UN Security Council held its open debate on children and armed conflict (CAAC), under Brazil’s presidency. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG-CAAC) presented the Secretary-General’s (SG) 2022 annual report on CAAC (forthcoming), covering the period from January 1 to December 31, 2021.

Read UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell's remarks at the United Nations Security Council Open Debate on Children and Armed Conflict HERE

JULY 2022 SPECIAL UPDATE – OPEN DEBATE ON CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

In view of the open debate, Watchlist recommends that the Security Council and other UN Member States:

Call for increased compliance with international humanitarian, human rights, and refugee law and child protection norms, and strengthen accountability for all grave violations against children;

Strengthen effective use of existing mechanisms and tools to monitor, report, and respond to grave violations; and

Prioritize the protection of the rights and well-being of children in armed conflict.

Statistics Should Never Overshadow the Individual Suffering of Children in Armed Conflict, “We Must Redouble Efforts to End Grave Violations”

“There is no word strong enough to describe the horrific conditions that children in armed conflict have endured. Those who survived will be affected for life with deep physical and emotional scars. But we must not let these numbers discourage our efforts. They should serve as an impetus to reinforce our determination to end and prevent grave violations against children. This report is a call to action to intensify our work to better protect children in armed conflict and ensure that they are given a real chance to recover and thrive,” said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba."

FLASH ACTION || LARGEST LRA DEMOBILIZATION IN 20 YEARS

"In April, two LRA splinter groups in eastern CAR  entered into demobilization negotiations with authorities. Both groups began handing over some of their weapons as a first step toward the full disarmament of their groups. This means that up to 250 children, women, and men in these groups could be coming out of the LRA very soon. This would be the largest LRA demobilization since Invisible Children was founded. And it is in large part thanks to the bravery of local community groups, trained by Invisible Children, that have led to this moment."

Join our Flash Action and help us raise $10,000 to continue the ongoing negotiations and make sure every LRA returnee has the support they need to get home to their families.

Drawings from the 2022 Annual Meeting for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action

During the 2022 Annual Meeting, the Alliance had a team of virtual artists capturing all the highlights and most memorable moments from each session in the meeting.

You can also re-watch all the sessions HERE in English.

Solidarity without Borders: Friendship, the Arts, and Social Movements

"How might engaging in the act of friendship, initiating it, cultivating it, and maintaining it, lead to solidarity within a social movement? And does this solidarity lead to future nonviolent collective action? Can friendship be a tool for human rights activists who want to build long-term resilience for a social movement? In order to think through these questions, this essay draws upon ethnographic work with Indonesian artists and social and environmental justice activists who engage with local and global communities. Specifically, the work of art collective Taring Padi is used to illustrate the ways in which art can be used to create new friendships and sustain them with the goal of building long-term connection and transcending violence."

elephants on the move: 250 elephants to be translocated in Malawi

"The translocation will take place between 27th June and 29th July, 2022 as part of a national conservation initiative to maintain healthy habitats in Malawi’s national parks, establish viable elephant populations, and ensure the prosperity of local communities living around the parks."

This important initiative is being made possible by the generous support of the Elephant Cooperation, with a leadership gift and the generous support of various philanthropic funders. Elephant Cooperation is a non-profit devoted to raising awareness of the African Elephant crisis and supporting existing organizations who embrace our cause.

Museums exempt as ivory trade ban comes into force

Dallaire Institute Strategic Plan 2022-2025

Children, Peace and Security: A Policy Checklist on Building the Agenda Together

"A policy checklist on what governments and leaders need to understand about a Children, Peace and Security (CPS) agenda and how it relates to the broader global peace and security agenda."

Visiting Scholar Presents Work on Child Soldiers

Dr. Christelle Molima Bameka presented her research related to the effects of colonialism on violent conflict in East Africa. Her presentation touched on a number of theoretical and policy issues, and was narrated through her expertise on child soldiers and war-afflicted youth. She deployed the case-studies of three youths in order to leverage a broader and more complete vision of justice that included conversations about land ownership, histories of colonialism, and how to speak about victims of the violence of child soldiers.

FEDS BACK DALLAIRE INSTITUTE STUDY EXAMINING THE MENTAL‑HEALTH IMPACTS OF EXPOSURE TO CHILD SOLDIERS

“This research project will be the first of its kind to explore the connections between morally injurious events and the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. In a unique partnership between the Dallaire Institute and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), as well as researchers from the University of Western Ontario, Lawson Health Research Institute, and the MacDonald Franklin Operational Stress Injury Research Centre, the mental health impacts of exposure to child soldiers during military service will at last receive the clinical and rigorous academic study this long-neglected area deserves.”

“This unique collaboration of mental health professionals, academic researchers, and practitioners in the field of child protection and military training will enable opportunities to apply this research to multiple fields, including health, security sector reform, and child protection, and has great potential for informing practice and research in this new area.”

Africa’s Elephants Are in Peril—but Travel Could Help Protect Them

“Ecotourism is an important contributor to elephant conservation in southern and east Africa where the tourism industry is well developed, and where elephants are easy to observe in the open savannas,” she said, adding that the challenge is to transfer some of that tourism value to the less-visited regions of West and Central Africa.”

"Red Hand Day, February 12 each year, is an annual commemoration day on which pleas are made to political leaders and events are staged around the world to draw attention to the fates of child soldiers, children who are forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts. The aim of Red Hand Day is to call for action against this practice, and support for children who are affected by it.

Children have been used repeatedly as soldiers in recent years including armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Cote d’Ivoire, Burma, the Philippines, Colombia, and Palestine. Estimates on the number of children engaging in armed conflict around the world show no change between 2006 and 2009. Rehabilitation for child soldiers returned to their communities ranges from inadequate to non-existent.

Red Hand Day was initiated in 2002, when the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict entered into force on February 12, 2002. This protocol was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in May 2000 and currently has signatures from over 100 different states. A number of international organizations are active against the use of children as soldiers. These organizations include, for example, the United Nations Child Fund (UNICEF), Amnesty International, Terre des Hommes or the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.