YouSaid · the spoken record

Lake

lines on the record: 38
first: 2011-07-12
most recent: 2016-08-02
sittings or episodes: 4
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Education improves their futures and is therefore vital to the futures of their communities and societies. Our progress to date has shown that the children trapped by conflicts are not beyond our reach. With the support of Governments, the global community and all parties to conflict, we can and indeed must help these young lives to emerge from the shadows of war, not only through our resolutions, but also through our resolve; not only through our outrage, but also through our action.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“Beyond their illegality and immediate devastating impact, attacks against health workers and facilities have far-reaching consequences for children, their communities and health-care systems. All parties to conflict must protect and allow for the safe delivery of health care to these children and their families because every child has a right to health even in the midst of conflict - indeed, especially in the midst of conflict. Thirdly, education is key. As with attacks against health facilities, the devastating impact of attacks on schools for children and the future of their societies cannot be overstated, which is why the Education Cannot Wait fund aims to reach those millions of young people whose education has been disrupted by crises, including by conflicts.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“We all should call on all parties to conflict to commit to protecting children by changing the way they wage their wars, including by ending the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. We should call on them to join the ban on landmines and cluster munitions. Children make up about half of those killed and injured by cluster munitions. We should call on them to share information and include provisions in ceasefire and peace agreements that will expedite the clearance of unexploded ordnance and provide targeted risk education to make communities safer. We should call on them to protect children with disabilities during military operations and in evacuation plans. And as always, we should continue calling on them to allow humanitarian aid to reach those most in need. Secondly, I refer to health care.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“That includes focused action in three particular key areas: explosive weapons and remnants of war, health care and education. First, I note the use of explosive weapons in densely populated areas. These weapons accounted for almost 44,000 deaths and injuries last year alone. When they were used in densely populated areas, nine out of ten victims were civilians. Not only does the use of these weapons kill and maim children; not only does it deny these children safe access to hospitals, schools and water facilities; but it also results in new and permanent disabilities among children and makes life even more difficult and dangerous for those already living with disabilities. Children are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in any conflict, and children living with disabilities are even more so.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“The scale of all the violations against children - and indeed, the stakes of the violations for their societies - demand that all parties to conflict do far more to protect Children's rights in conflict, whether they are tragically drawn into the fighting as combatants or have their health, education and very lives jeopardized by it. The United Nations monitoring and reporting mechanism on grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict continues to help define the full scale of the crisis by providing vital information on the unspeakable atrocities they have experienced and witnessed. Using that information, we must and will continue working with parties to conflict to better prevent violations of the rights of children in armed conflicts and help shape programmes and services that can brighten these children's futures.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“In Colombia, children's rights are being woven into the peace agreement being negotiated in Havana, including a pilot initiative to release and provide assistance to children involved in the conflict. This is an important first step not only for these children, but for the many more who must follow - and indeed, a big step for Colombia's future. Another example was the signing just four months ago by the Government of the Sudan of an action plan to prevent the recruitment and use of children by its security forces. But there is much more to be done beyond preventing and ending recruitment.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“This is all to get them back where they belong - with loved ones, in school, in a safe place where they can begin to heal and build the futures they deserve. We also welcome the progress that individual countries are making on their action plans to prevent and end the recruitment and use ofchildren in armed conflict, including through the Children, Not Soldiers campaign. Governments are enacting legislation and establishing procedures to keep children from being recruited. That includes age-assessment protocols to keep children from entering the military in Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan, and legislation enacted to criminalize child recruitment in countries where no such laws existed before.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“But our outrage and anger must be matched by action, not only, for example, to end the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, but also to support them as they rebuild their lives and contribute to the future of their societies, and to seek measures that will prevent other children from suffering the same fate. While the picture remains grim, we can be encouraged by our progress to date. Last year alone, thanks to the tireless efforts of so many of our partners dedicated to this cause, nearly 10,000 girls and boys were released from armed forces or armed groups, and nearly 7,000 accessed services, such as medical screening, psychosocial support and counselling, family tracing and reunification, and education and vocational training.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“These numbers alone, and the many others outlined in the Secretary-General's report (S/2016/360), paint a devastating picture. But more, we can never forget that behind these statistics are millions ofindividual girls and boys. Child after child after child, millions of individual futures are at terrible risk - at risk of being killed in attacks on schools and hospitals; at risk of being maimed by a landmine or an airstrike; at risk of abduction, sexual violence and trafficking; and at risk of being recruited to fight, including, outrageously, as suicide bombers. They are victimized by warring adults who have lost any sense of simple morality and legal obligation. We are not human if we are not outraged by all of this.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“Mr. Lake: I would like to begin by thanking the Secretary-General for his strong words and his strong commitment to this issue, and my colleagues Leila Zerrougui for all her very determined work. All of us at UNICEF are truly grateful for the continuous efforts of the Security Council to protect the lives and futures of children who are threatened by armed conflict. We are also grateful to Malaysia for its leadership in the Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. Nearly 250 million - a number we often bear, but that is 250 million - children are living in countries and areas affected by war. Over 30 million have been displaced by conflict. Millions more have been physically and emotionally scarred by violence, witnessing the worst of humankind and seeing things in their young lives that no child should see.”
2016-08-02 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7753 (2016) · source
“Her story personifies horror but also hope: the horrors faced by children associated with armed forces and groups but also the hope that, with support, investment and encouragement, we can help these young men and women rebuild their lives, transform themselves and their societies and help their countries emerge from the shadow of conflicts that have included the horror of children losing their childhoods and even their lives.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“On a recent visit to the Central African Republic a few weeks ago, I met a young woman who was 14 years old when she joined the Seleka. Without training, she was thrust directly into battle, fighting on the front lines against Government forces and witnessing acts of violence and atrocities no child should ever see. I asked her about her hopes for the future now that she was free. She told me that she wanted to be reunited with her parents, who remained missing. With the support of social workers, that young woman will soon begin professional training, still haunted by the nightmare that she has endured, but dreaming, too, of a better future for herself, her family, when she finds them, and, indeed, her country.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“Prevention also requires greater awareness at the community level. The Government of Myanmar joined forces with the United Nations to invest in a television, radio and billboard campaign to inform communities that child recruitment was prohibited, along with a phone number to report cases. Beyond prevention, we cannot forget the specific needs of child soldiers who are emerging from conflict and need help in reintegrating into society. A country that invests in counselling, educating and training those children is not only investing in their futures, but in its own future as well. That is why UNICEF is working closely with countries to support their efforts to educate and train those children, helping them find a place in their communities.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“To translate those plans into measurable action, the United Nations must continue to provide resources, advice and technical assistance to help Governments identify and release children from their ranks and establish measures to prevent children from ever entering those ranks again. Verifying the ages of soldiers is an important first step. With United Nations support, Chad accelerated efforts to screen its troops last year, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been working closely with United Nations agencies to identify and release children from its security forces. Birth registration, a child's passport to protection, is also essential. The action plans developed by both Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo include national birth registration campaigns to register every child.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“Focused national action is at the heart of our new advocacy effort entitled "Children, not soldiers", through which United Nations agencies are working in partnership with eight Governments to prevent and end the recruitment and use of children in Government forces. Six of those countries - Afghanistan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, Somalia and South Sudan - have signed action plans with concrete, time-bound steps to make that happen. Yemen is finalizing its plan, and the Sudan is now in discussions with the United Nations to develop its plan. But Governments cannot be asked to act alone.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“In recent years, the world has made real progress: better documenting and responding to grave violations against children; holding perpetrators accountable through investigations, prosecutions and disciplinary measures such as those imposed by national authorities in Colombia, Myanmar and Siena Leone; and developing effective responses, including counselling and vocational training, to help children break the physical and psychological bonds that have imprisoned their lives and threatened their futures. But more must be done. Just as the global community has a responsibility to end grave violations against children, each nation, too, has a responsibility to keep children from entering the ranks of its armed forces in the first place, as does every armed group.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“But what of the atrocity of a boy being recruited at gun-point into an armed group; of a girl kidnapped from her school, traumatized by abuse and then given a gun and made to fight; or of any armed force sending children to battle to kill and die? In that regard, too, our outrage must be matched by action to end the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict anywhere and to support survivors while giving them the tools they need to rebuild their own lives and the future of their societies.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“Mr. Lake: Let me begin by thanking the Secretary- General, my friend and colleague Leila Zerrougui and you, Sir, for your leadership on this issue. Let me also commend and thank the Security Council for its nine resolutions to help end the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict and for giving voice to those children through this debate. I look forward to hearing from Alhaji Babah Sawaneh, who in 2001, at the age of 14, became the first-ever former child soldier to brief the Council (see S/PV.4422), and who now supports former child soldiers in Sierra Leone. My remarks will be as brief as they are heartfelt. When children are killed in indiscriminate attacks on schools or hospitals, when a boy is maimed by a landmine, when rape is both a weapon as well as a crime - the world is rightly outraged.”
2014-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7129 (2014) · source
“A few kind words; a welcoming ear of an adult who is not there to take advantage of them or to cast judgment upon them; an offer of food, water or medicine - those simple gestures can bring her or his guard down, even for just a moment. Despite the horrors endured, there is resilience there, a glimmer of gritty hope. These children are not beyond our reach. Our message to them must be that noe of us will not turn away; that our resolve to bring perpetrators to justice will not falter; and that every one of us accepts the burden of accountability.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“In short, there is a natural tension at the heart of UNICEF's efforts to deliver impartial humanitarian assistance while protecting and advocating for children's rights. That work, of course, is not only inherently intense, it is also resource-intensive, especially as we establish the monitoring and reporting mechanism in new situations and implement various action plans with parties to the conflicts. As we accept those necessary costs and ask for help in managing them, we will always keep our eyes on our ultimate goals, namely, protecting, rehabilitating and upholding the rights of children trapped in conflict zones. When one meets one of these children face- to-face, as many of us have, one notices something extraordinary.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“In the Central African Republic we are working with three armed groups with whom we have signed action plans to release children from their ranks. Similar efforts are under way in Afghanistan, Chad, Myanmar, the Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan and elsewhere. This work is enormously complex, especially in situations involving cross-border conflicts and refugee flows into neighbouring countries. For the United Nations it demands that we leave room for negotiation and walk a fine line - between our hunger for justice and our thirst for peace, between our work on prevention and our work to rehabilitate the victims, and between our outrage at the perpetrators and our need to persuade them.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“Governments and others must allow United Nations involvement to help them establish national systems to prevent sanctions violations and deliver the right response services to those who need them without delay. Those actions cannot take place in isolation. They can only be effective through the active involvement of all those concerned, including Governments and communities, as well as the engagement even of those responsible for perpetuating violations against children. That work includes negotiations with armed forces and groups to secure the release of children who have been recruited, sometimes abducted and forced into combat. In Mali, for instance, UNICEF and our partners have engaged with community leaders who are in active contact with armed parties to the conflict to advocate for children's rights and to end child recruitment.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“In addition to monitoring and reporting violations, we are offering a range of responses, including mine-risk education, psychosocial support, vocational training, assistance to survivors of sexual violence and help for children who are being reintegrated into society after their association with armed forces and groups. We must recognize that the future of those children hangs in the balance. We cannot leave them to fend for themselves. This is our commitment and our accountability. The responsibility of Governments to their citizens, and of citizens to each other, is most fully measured by their accountability to the most vulnerable in their societies. They must therefore support efforts to monitor, report and respond to grave violations against children and their rights.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“That includes last year's ground-breaking resolution 1998 (2011) to make attacks on schools and hospitals an automatic trigger for listing parties in the Secretary-General's report. The United Nations monitoring and reporting mechanism is also built around accountability and a commitment to end grave abuses of children's rights. The information on violations collected by United Nations task forces around the world is helping us to shape timely and appropriate responses in regions blighted by conflict, and to meet our goal of protecting all children. UNICEF is working closely with Governments and communities to protect and rehabilitate children affected by conflict.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“A sick, bed-ridden child waiting for medicine that will never arrive in her village because soldiers stand in the way. The world is making progress in holding perpetrators of such acts accountable. The recent verdicts against Thomas Lubanga by the International Criminal Court, and against Charles Taylor by the Sierra Leone Special Court, for example, demonstrate global progress against impunity and for justice. But accountability runs in many directions. Just as perpetrators need to be held accountable for the fate of children in conflict zones, so do Governments, and so do we. The nine resolutions adopted by the Council since 1999 represent a clear commitment to accountability and action on behalf of children trapped in the horror of conflict.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“But it deserves still more. In a child's eyes one will find the light of hope and of promise for the future. But look into the eyes of former child soldiers, or the eyes of children who have suffered from terrible abuses, or even the eyes of those who have simply witnessed the horrors of war. That light is still shadowed by fear, pain and the terrible knowledge of humanity at its worst. Those children have seen too much, too soon. An orphan boy from a small village recruited at gunpoint to become a soldier, handed a gun of his own to recruit others, blinded by prejudice and hate, trained to kill without emotion. A girl living through the horror of rape. A boy robbed of his legs after stepping on a landmine planted outside his school.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“Mr. Lake: I would like to thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me to participate today. Let me begin by thanking in absentia Radhika Coomaraswamy and Alain LeRoy for all of their work. I also want to heartily welcome our new partnership with Leila Zerrougui and Herve Ladsous. We very much look forward to ever stronger work together in this tremendously important field. Let me also thank Germany and you, Mr. President, for your devoted, even passionate, work in this cause and all your work as Chair of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict. More than ever - under the leadership of the Council, the Secretary-General, you, Mr. President, and so many others - the issue of children and armed conflict is getting more of the focus, attention and action that it deserves, as participants you heard from my colleagues.”
2012-09-19 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6838 (2012) · source
“Today, we are taking another step forward, and I cannot thank the Council enough for its commitment to children affected by armed conflict and for making this critical issue a priority.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“In 2009 we commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and it has been more than a decade since the adoption of the Optional Protocols, which ban some of the worst forms of exploitation and abuse against children. I urge those Member States that have not done so to sign, ratify and implement those indispensable instruments. Let us never forget, however, that human rights are not an end in themselves. The lives of people, of children, are our purpose. Rights are a context for upholding human dignity and for creating the conditions for human progress. It is the practical steps we take to protect these rights - and the impact of our actions - that can change the world.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“He intends to find another community in which to live and he is receiving more training for civilian life. But his future is very uncertain. On the same trip, I met another young man who was kidnapped at the age of 11 and forced to fight for years before he escaped. Fortunately, he found a way to use his training. Today he operates a carpentry shop, is married and has a child of his own. I will never forget his pride as he told me that he had made the chair I was sitting on, or the hope his example has inspired in others at the training centre where he was trained, who now go to visit him as a symbol of their hope for the future.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“Too often, I believe, we refer to the children caught in conflict simply as victims to be pitied. But as so many of us have seen, they are remarkably and poignantly resilient, and brave beyond imagining. They deserve our admiration, perhaps even our awe. They have hopes and dreams like children everywhere, even when virtually everything has been taken from them. They do not need our pity. They need practical support and programmes designed to help them make the most of their potential and a positive contribution to their societies. The young boy whom I met in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had returned to his life as a soldier twice and then been released. He continues to be at risk of recruitment because he lacks the skills and resources to withstand it.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“While denunciation gives expression to the outrage we all feel, it alone will not move Governments. Those are necessary conditions, but insufficient to achieve lasting change. To do that, we must also find practical new ways to prevent these acts from occurring. Action plans are an important part of this. The United Nations should have access to all Governments and groups that want to pursue them. Furthermore, today's resolution should lead to necessary discussion on the military use of schools and hospitals, thus encouraging more Governments to follow the lead of Nepal and the Philippines in protecting schools as zones of peace. Finally, even as we strengthen the legal framework to increase our response to these abuses, we must never lose sight of the children who have been abused and those who are at risk.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“Adding attacks on schools and hospitals as a trigger for listing parties in the Secretary-General's annual report will heighten awareness of these grave violations and the terrible impact they have on the lives of children. We hope that this will spur Governments and groups to do more to prevent attacks on schools and hospitals through defining concrete plans to end those violations. If they do not, creating clearer links to sanctions committees will strengthen the Council's ability to take action. Impunity is as intolerable in a civilized society as justice is indispensable. Our purpose today is one of principle, but it must also be one of practicality. Monitoring, reporting and listing alone are not enough. Sanctions alone are not silver bullets.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“We must not fail these children. It is up to all of us to take action to protect the schools where they learn and the hospitals where they heal. To do so is to protect their individual futures and the futures of their societies. We are making progress in meeting this challenge thanks to the commitment of the Secretary-General, the strong resolve of the Council and the ceaseless efforts of so many. In particular, all of us owe so much to the tireless and admirable work of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Radhika Coomaraswamy, as well as to Ambassador Peter Wittig and the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and, increasingly, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) as more children are swept up in violent conflicts. Today, the Council has acted on that progress and is building upon it.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“Those same children are less likely to see a doctor or visit a health clinic and are more likely to be deprived of their most basic needs. The great educator Maria Montessori once said that education is the most effective way of opposing war. It is also an indispensable foundation for peace and prosperity. And it is at the very heart of equity. In times of peace, education gives disadvantaged children the chance to break the cycle of poverty and to contribute to their societies. It is no different in times of war, and may be even more important then. Schools restore a sense of normalcy and teach children the skills they need to survive and thrive, helping them rise above the horrors that they have witnessed. Without those skills, they are more vulnerable to violence. And so the vicious circle of poverty, despair and conflict continues.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“Unexploded ammunition and mines litter playgrounds, threatening life and limb. Hospitals have been looted and immunization campaigns interrupted. Children have been taken, literally, from their classrooms to the battlefield. The human costs of these attacks are beyond statistical calculation. The economic costs are also very high, forcing communities to rebuild schools and replace stolen supplies and equipment when conflicts come to an end - a cost that most can little afford, few budgets provide for and humanitarian aid rarely covers. The costs to society are also staggering. As Radhika Coomaraswamy just noted, almost one half of all children out of primary school in the world today live in conflict areas in countries that are often among the world's poorest places.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“As we have heard today, and as the Secretary-General's report (S/2011/250) describes in grim detail, their stories are painfully repeated in conflict areas around the world. Millions of children bear the brunt of war. They are killed, maimed, orphaned, forced to flee their homes, sexually assaulted, pressed into the service of armed groups and exposed to unspeakable violence. Those horrific acts are not only violations of international and humanitarian law; they are violations of our common humanity. Today, the Council has affirmed that attacks on schools and hospitals are attacks on children and must be treated as such, for these grave violations are alarmingly common. As has been described, schools have been burned and bombed, classrooms used to billet soldiers and schoolyards used to bury the dead.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source
“Mr. Lake: On behalf of UNICEF and the children whom all of us here serve, I thank the Council for convening this debate on a subject of urgency, and especially for adopting this important resolution (resolution 1998 (2011)) this morning. A few months ago, I met a 16-year-old boy in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. "Years earlier", he told me, "they came to my village and took me away and, from that day on, I was a soldier". That was literally true. But looked at another way, on that day he lost his childhood. His childhood was taken from him at the point ofa gun. On the same visit, I met a young girl who had lived through the horror of rape by an armed soldier. She, too, was violently robbed of her childhood, and of so much more.”
2011-07-12 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.6581 (2011) · source