To reach them will require our utmost effort to enhance respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, to promote sustainable economic and social development for wider prosperity, to alleviate distress and to curtail the existence and use of massively destructive weapons. Armed conflict, more than any other force, has transformed the lives of millions of children and women. Children and their families are not just getting caught in the crossfire. Many are being targeted.
Nothing is spared, held sacred or protected.
It is the singular characteristic of armed conflict in our time that children suffer most. In the past decade alone, an estimated 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict. Three times as many have been seriously injured or permanently disabled. Countless others have been forced to witness or even to take part in horrifying acts of violence. The lack of control and the sense of dislocation and chaos that characterize contemporary armed conflicts can be attributed to many factors, such as political upheavals and struggles for control over resources in the face of widespread poverty and economic disarray.