INEW will co-host a side event on Protecting Civilians from the Use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas at the Read More

On 23 May the UN Security Council will hold an open debate on the Secretary-General’s latest report on the protection Read More

Joint NGO statement on protection of civilians   Photo: © UNHCR/Susan Schulman

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Security Council’s inclusion of the protection of civilians as an item in its Read More

New report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict issued on 7 May 2019  In his new report on the Read More

In 2017 nearly a fifth of all children were living close to conflict – with 142 million children living near areas of intense fighting. These children are more at risk of harm than any generation since the end of the Cold War. The number of verified incidents of all six grave violations against children in war – as identified by the United Nations – continues to increase, with the reported number tripling since 2010.

INEW briefing paper on the protection of civilians – May 2019

This briefing of representatives of Latin American and Caribbean permanent missions to the UN in Geneva will provide a brief Read More

Today INEW launches its International Parliamentary Appeal calling on members of legislative bodies such as Parliament and Congress to urgently Read More

For more details on the launch, see here For details on the Parliamentary Appeal, see here

The use of explosive weapons, particularly in populated areas, causes wide-spread and long-term harm to civilians. Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) has been monitoring casualties from the use of explosive weapons around the globe since 2010. So extreme has such harm been in Syria in recent years that, by the end of 2017, Syria had overtaken Iraq as the country most impacted by explosive violence since our monitor began.

Increasingly, the brunt of armed violence and warfare is being borne by children. Children suffer in conflict in different ways to adults, partly because they are physically weaker and also because they have so much at stake – their physical, mental and psychosocial development are heavily dependent on the conditions they experience as children.