NEW YORK, DECEMBER 6 – Today, at an Arria Formula meeting of the Security Council, Italy reaffirmed that the protection of schools in armed conflicts is an outstanding priority of its external action, with grave concern for the gender dimension. “We renew our efforts while urging all Member States to endorse and fully implement the Safe Schools Declaration adopted six years ago”, said the Italian Permanent Representative to the UN, Maurizio Massari.
The meeting was organized by the missions of Norway and Niger. Special Representative for children in armed conflicts Virginia Gamba and UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore were among the briefers.
Abduction and sexual violence
‘”Intercommunal conflicts, military operations, insecurity and the spread of COVID-19 continued to have a heavy impact. Cases of abduction and sexual violence continued to worryingly increase – grave violations affected boys and girls heavily, though differently: whereas 85% of ‘children soldiers’ were boys, 98% of sexual violence was perpetrated against girls”, added Massari.
A bleak backdrop
Against this “bleak backdrop”, it is essential to continue to raise the attention of the international community on this topic in all the relevant international fora, the Italian Ambassador said. He also stressed the importance of peacekeeping missions in protecting civil infrastructures such as schools and hospitals and the concerned civilian populations: “It is therefore essential to provide peacekeeping troops with targeted training on gender issues, on top of the benefits provided by the presence of women personnel, as they have proven to be extremely successful in building trust with local populations, especially women, children and older persons”. (@OnuItalia)
