UN Submission on Child Rights in Armed Conflict

Human Rights Watch welcomes the opportunity to provide input to inform the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights' report on the rights of the child and violations of human rights in armed conflict.[1]

This submission highlights specific harms and violations that children with disabilities experience in armed conflicts, including those related to their inability to flee attacks, risk of abandonment, lack of access to assistive devices, lack of access to basic services, and denial of education as well as experiences of stigma, abuse, psychological harm, and poverty. This submission draws from research conducted by Human Rights Watch in Afghanistan, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Palestine, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

1. Nature of Violations

In situations of armed conflict, children with disabilities experience multiple, intersecting human rights violations, including abandonment and barriers to fleeing attacks, and violations during forced displacement. They also experience neglect in accessing humanitarian assistance, assistive devices, and education. Additionally, all children in an armed conflict risk mental health harms and acquiring a disability.

Abandonment and difficulties fleeing attacks

Children with disabilities are at higher risk when their communities are attacked. They may be less able to flee attacks, especially if there is no one to help them or if they have limited or no access to assistive devices. The failures by parties to armed conflict to take into account their specific rights and needs when ordering evacuations or providing advanced warnings of attacks put them even at a higher risk. Children with disabilities may be left behind: their families sometimes face a split-second decision whether to flee with those children who can more easily escape or remain behind to support them.[2]

Human Rights Watch has documented various instances where family members were forced to leave their children with disabilities behind to flee safely.[3] For example, a 5-year-old blind boy was left in his house in the South-West region, Cameroon, when soldiers arrived in the village in January 2019. He attempted to run, but fell into a pit toilet, where his father fortunately found him still alive.[4]

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military's failure to provide effective advance warnings when circumstances permitted before launching attacks made it harder for children and adults with disabilities to seek safety from attacks. Frequent unlawful evacuation orders by Israeli forces overlooked the needs of children with disabilities, many of whom couldn't leave without assistance, increasing their risk of injury or death. Following an Israeli military evacuation order, Ghazal, a 14-year-old girl with cerebral palsy recounted that she had to flee for two days after losing all her assistive devices in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on October 11, 2023. Without her assistive devices, Ghazal had to be carried by her family. She realized that she was slowing her parents down, so she told them to leave her and save themselves.[5]

In Syria, Human Rights Watch found in 2022 that children with disabilities encountered similar challenges escaping hostilities, with a crucial absence of assistive devices such as wheelchairs, prostheses, crutches, and hearing aids.[6]

Violations during displacement

Displaced children with disabilities face not only challenges in accessing basic necessities required by all children, such as food, sanitation, and shelter, but also vital services and items specific to their disability, including medical assistance, assistive devices, and specialized nutrition.

In Gaza, where Israeli authorities imposed an unlawful blockade and severe restrictions on humanitarian aid, amounting to the war crimes of starvation as a weapon of war and collective punishment,[7] children with disabilities experienced unique harms. Children who are on a specific diet were at a particularly high risk of nutritional deficiencies and starvation because the food items they needed were denied entry to Gaza, and children who used medical devices needed for feeding, such as a gastrostomy feeding tube, could not easily prepare their food because of the lack of access to electricity.[8] Human Rights Watch reported in November 2024 that Israeli authorities were committing the war crimes and crimes against humanity of forced displacement, which created distinct harms for children and adults with disabilities, who are in general at higher risks of violations during forced displacement.[9] Human Rights Watch also documented that Israeli authorities deliberately deprived Palestinians in Gaza of adequate access to water, which resulted in devastating impacts on children with disabilities, amounting to the crime against humanity of extermination and acts of genocide.[10]

In the Central African Republic in 2015, in the M'Poko camp for internally displaced people in Bangui, Human Rights Watch documented that dozens of people in the same camp, including children with disabilities, had died from malnutrition, respiratory illnesses, and other diseases. People with disabilities disproportionately suffered due to inaccessible sanitation facilities or food distribution sites.[11]

Lack of access to humanitarian assistance

Children with disabilities are often overlooked in access to humanitarian assistance.[12] Human Rights Watch documented that this neglect can be attributed to a lack of awareness, inaccessibility, stigma and discrimination or to a lack of capacity and expertise of humanitarian personnel, among other factors.[13] For example, in Syria, there are more than three million people with disabilities ages 12 and older, and while humanitarian organizations struggle to provide humanitarian assistance to everyone in need, people with disabilities "face systematic challenges in accessing humanitarian relief on an equal basis with others,"[14] including a lack of accessible information about humanitarian relief.[15]

Lack of access to assistive devices

In all situations of armed conflict investigated by Human Rights Watch, children with physical and sensory disabilities often cannot obtain adequate prosthetic or assistive devices or replace them as they grow.[16] Human Rights Watch documented how the lack of prosthetics affected the mobility, emotional well-being and independence of children with disabilities in Syria, alongside their ability to flee armed attacks and to access schools and play with other children.[17] Thara, an 18-year-old Syrian woman, had to drop out of school at 13 when she lost a leg in an airstrike because her parents were afraid she would be unable to flee if the school came under attack. Five years later she still didn't have access to a prosthetic leg.[18]

In Gaza, where access to assistive devices is lacking due to severe restrictions on items that the Israeli military unilaterally deems "dual-use," including wheelchairs, and other assistive devices, children with disabilities and their families have been at higher risk of death and injury. Lack of access to these devices also made it more difficult for children with disabilities to access sanitation and meet basic needs, worsening their mental health.[19]

Access to education

Children with disabilities also face increased barriers to accessing public schools and educational services provided by humanitarian organizations. For children with physical disabilities, barriers can include inaccessible roads, inaccessible school facilities and a lack of assistive devices. For children with sensory, intellectual and psychosocial disabilities, they can include stigma and a lack of both trained teachers and inclusive curricula.[20]

For example, in Syria, Human Rights Watch found that children with disabilities have had very limited access to both formal and informal education offered by humanitarian organizations.[21] According to UN data, 72 percent of children with disabilities in northern Syria are out of school compared with 40 percent for children without disabilities.[22]

Mental health harms

All children living in conflict and crises zones face the compound harm of a heightened risk of depression, anxiety and other mental health harms. Accounts from Cameroon, Gaza, and Syria show that children with disabilities were particularly traumatized by the violence they witnessed.[23] Moreover, for children with disabilities, these harms are often compounded. They may carry additional fears-such as worrying that their situation could endanger family members or fearing abandonment during attacks.[24] At the same time, they often face a chronic lack of access to inclusive education and essential support services, including mental health care, which further exacerbates the mental health impact they endure.[25]

In Cameroon's North-West region, a secondary school teacher said children with disabilities "suffered more than others" after armed separatists attacked and "were particularly traumatized by the violence they witnessed."[26]

Acquiring a disability in an armed conflict

Conflicts also have increased the number of children with disabilities and trauma. For example, thousands of children in Gaza have acquired a disability from injuries caused by Israel's use of explosive weapons since October 2023. Malek, 13, lost his arm after an Israeli strike hit the local market where he went with his mother to get food coupons.[27]

II. Recommendations

While the above discussion is not comprehensive, we hope the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights will highlight in its report the numerous effects of armed conflict on children with disabilities. Human Rights Watch requests that the High Commissioner include in his report the following recommendations:

Protection

• Parties to armed conflicts should take all necessary measures for the protection and safety of children with disabilities as obligated by international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). This includes providing, unless circumstances do not permit, effective advance warnings of the attacks in accessible and inclusive formats to allow children with disabilities sufficient time to escape harm.
• Warring parties should not displace civilians in violation of international humanitarian law. In case of evacuation orders, governments should take into account the needs of children with disabilities and ensure that the evacuation areas are capable of providing for the needs of children with disabilities.
• The protection of children with disabilities is essential to the comprehensive protection of all children affected by armed conflict. UN agencies, governments, and humanitarian organizations should promote a concerted and cooperative protection response in contexts of armed conflicts by paying particular attention to the rights and situational needs of children with disabilities, including their right to be safe and protected, right to education, and access to humanitarian assistance, health care, assistive devices, and mental health and psychosocial support services.
• The situation of children with disabilities impacted by armed conflict should be addressed comprehensively in all the work of the UN. Meaningful inclusion entails considering all children with disabilities, including those who have been physically injured, those who have experienced mental health harms, and children with pre-existing disabilities. This will promote inclusive humanitarian responses and better respect and protection of the rights and needs of children with disabilities.

Humanitarian assistance

• Both donors and humanitarian actors should take deliberate and proactive measures to ensure children with different types of disabilities are systematically included in all humanitarian responses. Organizations providing humanitarian assistance should strive to include staff with disabilities and disability-training to ensure inclusion. Targeted, rights-respecting and disability-led response to the needs of children with disabilities, including regarding access to health care, rehabilitation services, early intervention programs, education, assistive devices, mental health and psychosocial support services and education should be provided.
• Parties to a conflict should not obstruct humanitarian aid and should not place unjustified restrictions that prevent humanitarian assistance from reaching children with disabilities, including assistive devices.
• Ensure all education programs are inclusive of children with disabilities.
• Ensure humanitarian assistance includes programming to address long-term mental health impacts and trauma, and ensure they reach and are accessible to children with different types of disabilities.

Reparations

• Governments responsible for violations should develop and implement a reparations program on the basis of meaningful and effective consultations with victims that includes targeted reparations for children who have acquired a disability and children with a pre-existing disability, including those with psychosocial disabilities.
• As part of reparations, ensure children with disabilities have access to free, quality, and rights-respecting medical, psychosocial, and mental healthcare services, including rehabilitation for the acquired disability and assistive devices.

Participation

• Ensure full and meaningful participation of all relevant stakeholders, including children with disabilities and their organizations, in all discussions and decision-making concerning children in armed conflict.