For the first time in thirty years, government forces accounted for the majority of violations against children in conflict zones in 2025, according to a UN report obtained on Wednesday by French news agency AFP.
The UN documented 38,558 violations against children last year across all parties involved in armed conflicts. Killings and maimings represented the largest share of these crimes.
State forces were responsible for more incidents than any other group, marking an unprecedented development since the inception of the monitoring mechanism.
According to Vanessa Frazier, UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, 2025 was undoubtedly one of the darkest chapters for child protection since the beginning of the UN tracking initiative.
Israel and the Palestinian territories, grouped together in the report, recorded the highest number of violations by a significant margin, with 12,445 documented cases.
Israeli armed forces accounted for the vast majority in this category, totalling 9,465 violations, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (4,114 violations), Nigeria (2,560), Myanmar (2,203), and Somalia (2,195).
In Ukraine, the UN confirmed 1,899 grave violations, which included the deaths of 94 children and injuries to 753 others, attributed to Russian armed forces.
Both the Israeli and Russian armed forces have been included on the UN’s “list of shame,” which identifies perpetrators of violations against children.
