The moral crisis

June 21, 2023

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The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that more than 400 million children currently live in conflict zones around the world. This estimate should not come as a surprise. Though the suffering of civilians including children in Ukraine is well known due to the widespread media coverage and involvement of great powers, one could come across more devastating conflicts in other parts of the world. People living in these conflict zones, for example, in Somalia, South Sudan, Mali, Syria, and Myanmar, are now conflict habituated. While for them violence is a living reality, the moral crisis that underpins these conflicts is that innocent children suffer the conflict most. While for them normal life should entail play, parental care, school education, and exploration of the world in creative and imaginative ways, in reality, for these innocent children, the ‘new normal’ include sexual abuse, hunger, displacement, lack of education, and many other sufferings.

While the conflicts for the most part of the twentieth century were confined to state actors, and the casualties involved mainly the soldiers, in the 21st century the conflicts have become more localized, and fought between groups living within the state borders or on borders between two or multiple states. More so, in these conflicts, ethnicity, religion, and other identities play key roles. While earlier the state armies fought the wars, in recent decades the actors have multiplied, and included many nonstate actors. Also, conflict strategies have changed. While earlier, wars were fought in the battlefields, the modern-day wars are waged not only in battlefields but also in civilian locations including schools and hospitals. One could think of Al Qaeda, which declared war against western values and the education system, and declared every American taxpayer its enemy. The attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, masterminded by it, was an unconventional war as the terrorists for the first time used airplanes as missiles and attacked a civilian target, killing about 3000 people.

Like Al Qaeda, Boko Haram (literally meaning, western education is forbidden) mainly operating in Nigeria, too targeted civilians including children. In 2014, it abducted more than two hundred schoolgirls from Chibok from eastern Nigeria, and despite the state efforts to rescue the girls the fate of many of them are still unknown. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria was another organization, which used children as sex slaves. Children also suffered in civil wars and ethnic conflicts. In this regard, one could think of wars in Yemen, Somalia, Sudan and Myanmar. To give an example, UNICEF estimates that among hundreds of thousands of people who fled state persecution in Myanmar, in 2017, 60 per cent were children. Those children suffered many challenges, including, “disease outbreaks, malnutrition, inadequate educational opportunities and the risks related to neglect, exploitation and violence including gender-based violence risks, child marriage and child labour.”  Though most of the conflicts in recent decades are waged by nonstate actors, supported directly or indirectly by state actors, there are a few instances when state actors too targeted civilians including the children. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has led to the death of many innocent children. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the press that the invasion has already killed five hundred children.

The UNICEF report rightly noted, “Children have become frontline targets. This is a moral crisis of our age: We must never accept this as the ‘new normal.’” The violent groups shun all canons of morality by targeting children. The UNICEF report listed six types of crimes against children: “killing and maiming of children; recruitment or use of children in armed forces and armed groups; attacks on schools or hospitals; rape or other grave sexual violence; abduction of children; and denial of humanitarian access for children.” These crimes happened almost in all conflict situations, though degrees vary. In the Ukraine conflict, one could see the incidents of attacks on hospitals and homes killing children. But in some conflicts in Africa, children were recruited as soldiers of war, or in the case of ISIS children were enslaved and sexually abused. According to the report, “Between 2005 and 2022, more than 315,000 grave violations were verified against children, committed by parties to conflict in more than 30 conflict situations across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. The actual number is undoubtedly far higher.” The report also talked about the impact of climate change on vulnerable children. While climate change is a major issue, the most important issue from a moral and humanitarian point of view, is the targeting of children by the actors in a conflict situation.

UNICEF needs support, including financial, to address the issues such as hunger and malnutrition, diseases, lack of education, and displacement in a more effective way.  Besides the state actors and international organizations, NGOS and humanitarian agencies must come forward to address one of the worst moral crises of our age.

This article was published in Times of India blogs, on June 20, 2023: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/periscope/the-moral-crisis-of-our-age/