UNICEF calls for end to atrocities against children

UNICEF's representative to Liberia, Dr. Cyrille Niameogo, has called for an end to impunity for the perpetrators of war crimes against children saying that this could enhance children's survival in the West African nation. "Atrocities on children, death, rape, multilation, forced recruitment, displacement, injury and malnourishment should not be tolerated," Niameogo said recently at a UN Dialogue Forum on the Survival of Children in Liberia. "In Liberia, up to 80 percent of the displaced population are made up of children and women and those children have also witnessed all sorts of war atrocities." He appealed for the inclusion of child protection in all peacebuilding, peacekeeping and peacemaking efforts in Liberia and stressed the need for a ceasefire to allow humanitarian actors to provide all needed assistance to children in particular. "Children as young as nine years are being conscripted into fighting forces on both sides of the conflict," Paul Najue, the head of Don Bosco Homes, a Roman Catholic child welfare institution, said. "What is most shocking and surprising is the conscription of young girls." Niameogo said that, as a means of protecting children, the UN and its partners in child rights were building awareness against the conscription of children. Liberia's health minister, Dr. Peter Coleman, said that "over the last 3-4 years as a result of the ongoing dissident atacks on Liberia about 55 percent of the health facilities have been destroyed or abandoned". He observed that the breakdown of health services caused by the conflict had serious implications for the survival of children, and that the conflict had "worsened the infant mortality rate and the environment in which children lived".