Each year, the world's most vulnerable are conscripted into its most brutal institutions — not by choice, but by force, poverty, and the calculated cruelty of those who see children as expendable instruments of war. In 2025, the United Nations recorded its highest-ever count of grave violations against children in armed conflict, with nearly 40,000 documented abuses spanning the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, and beyond. The children caught in these wars are simultaneously victims and, in the eyes of some, perpetrators — a paradox that sits at the heart of every pea
No Peace Without Child Disarmament: A Global Imperative
38,558 grave violations verified against 24,174 children in 2025, including 6,607 recruited or used by armed forces, with others killed, maimed, sexually abused, abducted, or denied humanitarian access.