United Nations, NY – On June 26, 2025, St. Kitts and Nevis’ Permanent Representative to the United Nations, H.E. Dr. Mutryce Williams, appeared before the United Nations Security Council to deliver an urgent call for global action on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The request was to address the issue of Children and Armed Conflict. The statement delivered by Ambassador Williams was an appeal to immediately seek and implement effective strategies to end and prevent grave violations against children internationally, regionally, and most importantly in the Republic of Haiti.
Representing CARICOM, Ambassador Williams commended the Cooperative Republic of Guyana for its leadership as President of the United Nations Security Council for June, and for convening the important debate. She emphasised that “across multiple conflict-affected regions, attacks on schools, their military use, and the denial of humanitarian access, have sharply curtailed children’s right to education, and access to food, water and shelter.”
She highlighted the situation in Haiti, noting that, “Amongst the many States in conflict, 60 per cent of the population of the Republic of Haiti is below age 24. The Secretary-General’s 2025 report confirms a 492 per cent increase in verified grave violations against children in Haiti, with 154 verified attacks on schools and hospitals in 2024.”
“These violations-beyond weapons-are part of a vector that includes narcotics; exploitative extractive practices; depleted ecological conditions; and enforced child labour-and undermine the Right to Development-in loss of children’s lives; and/or youth agency, future productivity, and leadership,” she said.
Ambassador Williams informed that CARICOM meets this situation with urgent engagement, commitment, and acknowledges, “the recent efforts by Haiti’s transitional authorities, including the establishment of a taskforce to implement the handover protocol for children associated with armed groups, and the release of detained children to civilian child protection actors.”
Ambassador Williams said that CARICOM called on Member States to join and implement the Convention on the Prohibition of Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines, and their Destruction. She informed that targeted support by local and international partners in community child reintegration efforts involving alternative shelter, psychosocial care, and safe education access, for example, the handover protocol by Haiti’s transitional authorities, was needed.
Member States were urged to join and fulfil their commitments to the Safe Schools Declaration, and to ensure that education is funded and protected as a frontline priority. She informed that child protection capacities must be emphasised in mandate renewals and UN country teams.
On behalf of CARICOM, Ambassador Williams reminded the Security Council that the protection of children is a core indicator of whether international security frameworks function effectively.
And called for the strengthening of regional and international enforcement of the Security Council’s arms embargo on Haiti; and for national capacities for weapons and ammunition management to be strengthened in conflict spaces.
She noted that CARICOM reaffirmed its full support for the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and the broader Children and Armed Conflict agenda, and made an earnest appeal for the Security Council to institute sanctions against the financing sources of armies that deploy children.
As a note, the United Nations Secretary General’s report stresses that violence against children in armed conflict situations reached “unprecedented levels’ in 2024; the UN verified 41,370 grave violations of which 36,221 were committed in 2024 and 5,149 were committed earlier but verified in 2024. The report notes that this represents a “staggering” 25 per cent increase compared with the previous reporting period and the highest number recorded since the monitoring and reporting mechanism (MRM) on violations against children was established in 2025. This year’s reporting marks the third consecutive year in which precipitous violations against children were documented.
The six grave violations as determined by the United Nations Security Council are child recruitment and use; killing and maiming; abductions; rape and other forms of sexual violence; attacks on schools and hospitals, and denial of humanitarian access.