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UN / CHILDREN ARMED CONFLICT WRAP
STORY: UN / CHILDREN ARMED CONFLICT WRAP
TRT: 02:56
SOURCE: UNIFEED-UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 02 AUGUST 2016, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations Headquarters
02 AUGUST 2016, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, Security Council
3. Med shot, delegates
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“Children still pay the highest price in wartime. Young boys and girls are directly targeted – and conscripted. They are tortured, maimed, imprisoned, starved, sexually abused and killed. Their homes and schools are destroyed. In places such as Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, children suffer through a living hell.”
5. Med shot, delegates
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“I still have very strong concerns about the protection of Yemeni children. They must always come first. The forward-looking review continues – and the situation on the ground will be closely monitored. We will continue our engagement to ensure that concrete measures to protect children are implemented. But I want to repeat: the content of the report stands.”
7. Med shot, delegates
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Anthony Lake, Executive Director, UNICEF:
“Our outrage and our anger must be matched by action. Not only, for example, to end the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, but 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.”
9. Wide shot, Security Council
10. Wide shot, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui walks up to the podium
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict:
“It is not pleasant to have this kind of situation. There is no doubt about it, because the UN cannot work without the support of member states and without feeling the pressure. For me the most important now, what happened in the past for me is behind, what we would like to see, and what we would like the review to be is that we have more protection for the children of Yemen, that we ensure that we have less violation on the ground, measures taken, and concrete measures taken to prevent further violation.”
12. Wide shot, Saudi Ambassador Abdullah bin Yahya Almouallimi walks up to podium
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Abdullah bin Yahya Almouallimi, Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations:
“He did say he came under pressure. He never said that that pressure was from Saudi Arabia. We never applied any such pressure on the Secretary-General. We do not condone of any party applying pressure on the Secretary-General or the United Nations. I have just said on my statement that the United Nations should be free to exercise its role and to perform its functions away from pressures by any country and by any lobbying group as well as well, I might add, because I think the Secretary-General has been under intense pressure from some NGO organizations who for one reason or another have an axe to grind with Saudi Arabia and wanted to jump on this as their opportunity.”
14. Pan right, Almouallimi walks away
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today (2 Aug) told the Security Council that in places such as Iraq, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen, “children suffer through a living hell.”
Discussing his annual report on children in armed conflict, the Secretary-General noted that, once again this year, objections to the report forced him to make difficult decisions. After very careful consideration, the Saudi Arabian-led coalition was removed from the annexes, pending the conclusion of the review.
He said “I still have very strong concerns about the protection of Yemeni children. They must always come first. The forward-looking review continues – and the situation on the ground will be closely monitored. We will continue our engagement to ensure that concrete measures to protect children are implemented. But I want to repeat: the content of the report stands.”
The Secretary-General has since received information on measures taken by the coalition to prevent and end grave violations against children.
Also addressing the meeting, the Executive Director of UNICEF, Anthony Lake, said “our outrage and our anger must be matched by action. Not only, for example, to end the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict, but 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.”
Outside the Council, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui, also addressed the issue of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Zerrougui said “It is not pleasant to have this kind of situation. There is no doubt about it, because the UN cannot work without the support of member states and without feeling the pressure. For me the most important now, what happened in the past for me is behind, what we would like to see, and what we would like the review to be is that we have more protection for the children of Yemen, that we ensure that we have less violation on the ground, measures taken, and concrete measures taken to prevent further violation.”
Also speaking to reporters, Saudi Ambassador Abdullah bin Yahya Almouallimi denied that his government applied pressure on the Secretary-General to have the coalition removed from the annexes of the report.
He said the Secretary-General “never said that that pressure was from Saudi Arabia. We never applied any such pressure on the Secretary-General. We do not condone of any party applying pressure on the Secretary-General or the United Nations. I have just said on my statement that the United Nations should be free to exercise its role and to perform its functions away from pressures by any country and by any lobbying group as well as well, I might add, because I think the Secretary-General has been under intense pressure from some NGO organizations who for one reason or another have an axe to grind with Saudi Arabia and wanted to jump on this as their opportunity.”
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