Summary

Consistent with resolution 35/34, this report is focused on children, considering child victims and witnesses of terrorist acts, children at perceived risk of recruitment and children associated or suspected of association with terrorist groups. The precise legal obligations of States may vary according to the circumstances of the child, but children in all such situations must be considered and treated as victims of terrorism.

Recent decades have seen the rise of terrorist networks with global reach and sophisticated strategies of international recruitment, which in some cases explicitly target children. Some of those networks control territories and children account for more than half of the civilian population of such territories. Those developments have rightly been the focus of much international attention, but the present report is not limited to such contexts. Terrorist acts perpetrated outside conflict zones by groups or lone actors, whether motivated by anti-Muslim sentiments, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, misogyny, or another hateful ideology or political goal, also have an impact on children.