The cascading crises the world has experienced this year are giving children’s rights advocates like me food for thought: what happens next and how can we all ensure that all children enjoy their rights and have the chance for a better future?
In my role as Executive Director of Save the Children International, I meet children from so many complex, fragile environments who are faced with situations that are unimaginable to most of us – situations that no child should ever find themselves in – and I am so often overwhelmed by their resilience and their hope. This year, at a refugee transit center on the border between Sudan and South Sudan, I met a 13-year-old boy who had fled the war in Sudan with his extended family. He spoke about the heartbreaking loss of both his parents in the war and how he struggled with persistent nightmares. As we spoke outside on a makeshift volleyball court, groups of teenagers who had also fled the war in Sudan laughed and cheered as they took turns competing to put the ball over the net.
Because no matter what happens, children are children. They want to play. They want to laugh. They want to learn. They want a future. And we have to be there to support them – and listen to them.
It could be so easy to feel overwhelmed by these heartbreaking stories, but switching off is not the solution, even though it is increasingly seen as the solution. Research by the Reuters Institute The journalism study shows that news avoidance reached record levels in 2024, with 39 percent of respondents – compared to 29 percent in 2017 – saying they actively avoid the news some of the time or all the time. They said the amount of information, long-standing stories such as the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and the negative nature of the news made them feel fearful and powerless.
Funding for humanitarian crises has also fallen, only around 43 percent United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan fulfilled by the end of November to help around 198 million people. About $400 million less was raised compared to the same period last year, when about 45 percent of the required amount was raised.
But now it is more important than ever that we do not turn our backs on the children of the world. Children have contributed the least to the situations in which they find themselves, yet they are affected the most. Deadly conflicts around the world and a climate emergency for which children are paying the ultimate price are taking a heavy toll on their hopes and dreams.
This year we celebrated 100 years since Save the Children founder Eglantyne Jebb successfully argued that children were independent human beings, not just the property of adults, and deserved their own basic rights. This was established in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child and paved the way for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to which we subscribe today – the most ratified human rights treaty in history.
Today every child has rights – including the right to health, to education, to protection, to safety, to be themselves and to have their voice heard. However, it is increasingly disheartening to see children’s rights being eroded due to the ongoing threats of conflict, climate change and inequality.
Today’s children face unprecedented conflict and geopolitical power struggles that disregard their mental, physical and emotional safety and rights. Additionally, climate-related disasters are forcing record numbers of children from their homes.
Our current report,Stop the war on childrenshowed that 473 million children – or one in five children worldwide – are living in or fleeing a conflict area. Serious violations against children during wartime have also almost tripled since 2010. We know that children faced with such violence face things that no child should ever have to experience.
During this year’s UN General Assembly, we held a meeting with Member States on the situation of children in the occupied Palestinian territories. One of the children who spoke to us was Rand* (not his real name), a 17-year-old girl who lives in the West Bank. After living through years of war, she told us: “I’m not sure what I’ve told you today will change anything, and frankly I don’t feel like it will change anything. “But I really want something to change. I want us to live a life like children in other parts of the world. As a Palestinian child, I really want our lives to change, for the war to end and for us to be able to live freely and with respect for our rights.”
This was revealed by a new analysis by Save the Children ahead of the COP29 summit in Azerbaijan last month one in eight children in the world is directly affected by the ten largest extreme weather events this year, while the number of children living in crisis situations due to extreme weather events has doubled in five years. Children who are displaced from their homes lose their sense of safety and security as well as the opportunity to learn and shape their future lives.
At this COP, I met Naomi, a child activist who we had helped come to the event from South Sudan, where schools across the country were closed for two weeks earlier this year due to a scorching heatwave. With rising temperatures making extreme weather events like this more frequent and severe, she said there is no future for her and other children without urgent action from leadership.
Furthermore, the Rates of violence against children are staggering: half of the world’s 2.4 billion children experience physical, sexual, emotional abuse and neglect every year, leading to far-reaching consequences that can last into adulthood, such as: B. the risk of mental illness and social problems such as substance abuse.
It’s no wonder people are increasingly turning away from the reality of daily news, but in a time of increasing challenges, we can’t turn away any further. We must work to address these challenges and ensure that children – who make up a third of the world’s population – can enjoy their rights today and in the future. We must listen to children, provide them with a platform to share their ideas and promote their rights. Together we must make 2025 a better year for children.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
