This is an extraordinary question, and I thank you for it.
Let me begin by saying that, although Resolution 2250 defines young people as 18 to 29, what became very clear to us is that youth is much more a socio-cultural phenomenon than it is a chronological age, and one of the phenomena that we identified was how, in fact, young people are often trapped in youthhood—one author refers to this as “waithood”—because the fact is that the rites of passage that dictate progress into adulthood are denied many young people.
This is very gendered, and in fact, it's not consistent. Young men who can't afford to marry, can't get jobs, can't acquire houses and can't acquire the formal status of adulthood are trapped in the status of youthhood despite their age. Often young women who are married off, often forcibly, and bear children at a much younger age acquire the formal status of adult women much younger than they ought to.
This is illustrative, because what it shows is that often young people are outside of a category that formally acquires protections under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, so they're not protected in the same way children are, but because of this waithood, they often don't acquire the trappings of adulthood that should come with all these rights.
We talk about a rights realization gap. I raise this because it is about distinct things. On the one hand, what we definitely found, particularly in conflict-affected societies where the space for civil society is closing down very often, is that the rights of assembly, participation and political engagement are often denied young people. Age bars young people's ability to run for office. Also, the repressive space often means young people are victimized. On the one hand, we are looking at that set of protections that is really critical.
But we would be misstepping, I think, if we didn't recognize that sometimes it's the gap between formal rights, which exist in the legislation, and substantive rights to which young people do not have access in reality because of generational and gender-based issues. That includes socio-economic rights, access to land, etc., and the rights to operate as youth-led organizations.
I would draw your attention to those two distinct arenas, some of which are formal, some of which are about protections that should be there and aren't, and others that are about a rights realization gap where young people are uniquely excluded and marginalized politically, economically and socially.