The Syrian Network for Human Rights released its special annual report dedicated to documenting violations against children by the parties to the conflict in Syria.
The report, which is entitled “Children of Syria… The Glaring Letdown”, was released on Monday (20-11-2017) on the Universal Children’s Day. It notes that Syria is the worst country in the world with respect to a range of violations against children, as the Syrian regime has been primarily responsible for these violations, despite the fact that the Syrian government had ratified the Conventions on the Right of the Child (CRC).
The report documented the “killing of 21,631 children by Syrian regime forces since March 2011, including 186 children who suffocated to death in chemical attacks, and 209 children who were killed in attacks by the Syrian regime that involved the use of cluster munitions or were killed in explosions of old cluster remnants.”
Additionally, the report records that no less than 289 children have died as a result of the siege imposed by Syrian regime forces and that no less than 12,007 children have been arrested by Syrian regime forces. Of those, 3,007 are still under arrest until today as most of the recorded arrest cases, the report notes, qualify as enforced-disappearance cases.
According to the report, children of Syria have suffered from cumulative ramifications that resulted from the daily bombardment and destruction as nearly 1,378 schools and kindergarten have been damaged, as the number of out-of-school children has exceeded 3.2 million children in Syria. The health sector was also affected as vaccination rates have dropped, and wide parts of the infrastructure have been destroyed, resulting in the spread of hepatitis, due to people resorting to drinking water from wells.
Many neighborhoods have been destroyed almost completely, forcing the Syrian family to displace, whether inside Syria or abroad, as a new kind of suffering had surfaced – with 60% of refugee children denied education, and forced into labor.
The report adds that the UNHCR numbers suggest that 230,000 children at least have been born in refugee camps. Many of those children weren’t able to acquire identification papers, as the huge challenges of fighting the phenomenon of the deprivation of nationality are significantly rising.
