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Child Soldiers

COVID-19

Trump Disses the UN’s 75th Birthday

May 6, 2020 
by Stephen Schlesinger
This fall, the United Nations will celebrate its 75th anniversary. This is a notable occasion. Most global security bodies have had short shelf lives. But the UN has shown an extraordinary durability — a tribute to how this body was conceived and fashioned during World War II by one of America’s great presidents, Franklin …

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COVID-19

The UN in New York Shuts Physically as Most Personnel Telecommute: Updates

March 15, 2020 
by Dulcie Leimbach and Stéphanie Fillion
The coronavirus has officially hit the United Nations at its New York City headquarters. On Thursday, March 12, the first reported case was confirmed by a diplomat with the Philippines mission to the UN, who said that a Filipino colleague had tested positive for Covid-19 and had notified the “UN medical director’s office.” The …

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SECURITY COUNCIL PRESIDENCY

Why Poland Could Master Mideast Issues in the UN Security Council

August 6, 2019 
by Stéphanie Fillion
Joanna Wronecka, Poland's ambassador to the UN
Even though many people think of August as vacation time, Joanna Wronecka, Poland’s ambassador to the United Nations, is not taking off anytime soon, as she is presiding over the Security Council for the month. As the Security Council is going to tackle issues affecting the Middle East and other parts of the world, …

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WORLDVIEWS

Dear UN Security Council: Remember to Protect the Children

July 30, 2019 
by Dragica Mikavica
Every time the budget committee of the United Nations meets, as it did in June, child-protection advocates enter a familiar existential crisis: will the United States and China cut UN budgets specifically allocated to specialists on child protection in peacekeeping missions? I am often asked by people in the UN why a child-rights advocate …

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The Vancouver Principles, New Steps to Help UN Peacekeepers Stop Child-Soldier Use

November 13, 2017 
by Julie Vanderperre
The one sure announcement to emerge from the annual United Nations peacekeeping defense ministerial conference this week will be the adoption of the Vancouver Principles, a set of rules aimed primarily at preventing the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The conference, being held Nov. 14-15 in Vancouver, British Columbia, will feature more than …

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TOPIC: WOMEN

UN Names Two Women to Highly Visible Envoy Posts

April 30, 2017 
by Kacie Candela
Two women have been named to highly visible posts at the United Nations: Pramila Patten of Mauritius is the new special envoy on sexual violence in conflict and begins in mid-June; and Virginia Gamba, an Argentine, is special envoy on children in armed conflict, beginning May 1. The latter is arguably the more controversial job because …

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Checking on the Health of the International Criminal Court

December 8, 2016 
by Dulcie Leimbach
THE HAGUE — At the glassy, eco-minded new building of the International Criminal Court here in the Netherlands’ capital, people who are being tried may still be called “detainees,” but make no mistake: they remain accused of such atrocities as murder, torture and child-soldier recruitment as well as gang-raping women and girls. It’s business …

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Advocates for Besieged Children Say Collaboration Is Essential

May 1, 2016 
by Barbara Crossette
Grim images from the small world of children are multiplying. Little bodies adrift in the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. Uncomprehending faces pressed against wire fences and barricades in Europe from the Balkans to the French port of Calais. At least 17 Syrian children and their pediatrician slaughtered by a bomb apparently targeting a hospital …

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Despite Peace Talks, Colombians Are Still Terrified of the FARC

August 31, 2015 
by Johanna Higgs
MEDELLIN, Colombia — “There is conflict in every single country in the world,” a 16-year-old former combatant from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC, rebel group said at a rehabilitation center for demobilized child soldiers here in Colombia’s third-largest city. Yet when it was pointed out that there was no conflict in …

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Colombia Takes a First Step to Participate in UN Peacekeeping Operations

February 1, 2015 
by Dulcie Leimbach
As Colombia’s long civil war appears to be headed toward a hard-sought peaceful settlement, the government may be ready to send soldiers from its huge, well-financed military to participate in peacekeeping missions of the United Nations. Colombian forces’ work in fighting terrorism was presented as a selling point by its defense ministry, but the military’s …

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New Protocols and Policies Tackle Sexual Violence in War

June 19, 2014 
by Dulcie Leimbach
As Sunni Muslim extremists first seized strategic cities in Iraq last week, and a United Nations spokesman for the human-rights high commissioner, Navi Pillay, said that rapes had been part of the mayhem, leaving four female victims dead from suicide, the first global conference to end such heinous crimes took place in London. There, …

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UN Peacekeepers Heading to the Central African Republic by the Fall

April 10, 2014 
by Dulcie Leimbach
The United Nations Security Council has authorized yet another peacekeeping force for an African country, the Central African Republic, approving up to 12,000 military and police personnel who are not likely to arrive until mid-September. The goal of the force is broad, given the nation’s crippled affairs: restore law and order, protect civilians, provide …

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Congolese Rebel Leader Faces Broad Charges of Sex Crimes

February 13, 2014 
by Dulcie Leimbach
Bosco Ntaganda
The first step to possibly try Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese warlord born in Rwanda, for war crimes and crimes against humanity, began recently at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Ntaganda, who turned himself in to the court last year by going to the United States Embassy in Rwanda, allegedly committed the crimes …

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Rape in War: It’s Not a Given Any Longer

January 9, 2013 
by Dulcie Leimbach
Women at the Stop Rape in Conflict Now campaign in Cartagena, Colombia
One of Fatou Bensouda‘s missions as the new chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is to make rape during conflicts a thing of the past. Until 20 years ago, she said in a speech at the United Nations recently, sexual violence and other sexual attacks were “all but ignored and dismissed as regrettable …

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