Mr. Chairman, vice-chairs and committee members, on behalf of the International Committee of the Red Cross, I would like to express my gratitude for this opportunity to discuss this extremely important subject.
The role of the ICRC is mandated by the international community through the Geneva conventions, and our exclusively humanitarian role is to support the faithful application of international humanitarian law, and where appropriate, to support the protection and assistance of victims of armed conflict while respecting the core principles of humanity, neutrality and independence.
The impact of COVID-19 on the vulnerability of children in conflict-affected contexts is being felt and witnessed today throughout the world, and we will certainly see the outcome for years to come. It is a privilege to be able to share some of our own observations over the past 12 months. They must be taken as only preliminary observations, as the full impact of this pandemic has yet to be felt.
I would like to summarize my remarks into the following areas: education, detention, family links services, and recruitment by and association of children with armed forces and armed groups.
Education, by its nature, is the public service most vulnerable to shocks. That came tragically home to all of us in the space of a week in March 2020, when nearly two billion children in more than 185 countries stopped going to school and schools were closed. While many countries were able to adapt and respond with alternative learning platforms, the technical means are simply unavailable in most of the countries in which the ICRC is operational.
Because of school closures, children have been denied an opportunity to be learners and to make choices for themselves, and for many, a return to school is now precluded. Some have been forced into the workplace, some into early marriage and some into becoming homemakers. For the most vulnerable children in areas where the ICRC works, children who are displaced, refugees, in detention or simply relying on education as a protective mechanism in a conflict zone, perhaps to avoid recruitment by an armed group or perhaps to be able to eat one meal a day, the long-term impact of this school closure is likely to be catastrophic.
Last, we remain very concerned about the reported increase in levels of domestic violence, including the exposure of children to higher levels than previously recorded.
In places of detention, we have seen both positive and negative changes to the status quo. In some contexts, we have witnessed the positive impact of increased engagement by the authorities to review individual cases. In many different countries, there was an initial rapid release of detainees, often starting with children, as part of the efforts to free up space inside places of detention and to reduce the risks of infection for detainees. In some settings, COVID-19 has accelerated a judicial review process, whereas before COVID there was no particular urgency to look into the detention of children who may have been awaiting trial, had been detained without charge or already had served their sentence without yet being released.
However, on the other side, unfortunately, for children and indeed all detainees who remain in detention, COVID-19 has also meant the limiting of family visits, and therefore often the cutting off of valuable lifelines for children who both need and want to maintain contact with their loved ones, and more pragmatically, to receive food, clothing and medicine.
Across the world, COVID-19 has led to the closure of international borders, restriction of movements within countries or limited humanitarian access, including to refugee or IDP camps, to avoid spreading the virus even further. These things have had a direct impact on the family links services and the Red Cross movement's ability to carry out tracing at the same speed as before, or even simply to put families back in contact, as staff have not had anything like the same level of access to affected populations to distribute and collect Red Cross messages.
Cross-border family reunifications, which involve transferring a child from one country to be reunited with their family in another country, for which the ICRC is normally the humanitarian actor in charge of working with the authorities, have been complicated by different and interlinked factors. The border and embassy closures are an administrative hurdle. Accessing the child, which is never straightforward, has been made more challenging due to ongoing restrictions. The unaccompanied child's safety and supervision are problematic when one or several quarantines are necessary. Also, sometimes families can be afraid that the incoming child will be seen as bringing the virus into the community and will be stigmatized or worse.
As mentioned earlier, there is a fourth immediate challenge. It is too early to have detailed statistics from areas where ICRC works, but it appears that the worsening socio-economic situation is driving an increase in early child marriage, particularly when so many girls are out of school. Several children in one of the countries in the Sahel who were ready to be reunified with their families and whose reunifications were put on standby when the border closed have now refused to return to their families, as they married in the interim, clearly as a survival mechanism.
In the coming months, it is going to be very important to work with the authorities, other actors and the Red Cross Restoring Family Links program volunteers to ensure that these services can continue and that unaccompanied, displaced and migrant children are not exposed to greater risks than they already are.
Let us also remember that violations of international humanitarian law concerning children were already in existence. These have continued and have been exacerbated. Unfortunately, the recruitment by and the association of children with armed forces and armed groups continues to expose children to extreme levels of violence, risk and trauma.
In times of socio-economic hardships and when school is no longer an option, the push factors for children to join armed groups increase. Also, because of COVID-19, the authorities may have less access to areas where child recruitment is taking place, and official programs that aim to support children to leave armed groups may be reduced in scope.