Armed Conflict: Children

Monica Harding Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for securing this vital debate. As we have heard, today one in five children live in areas affected by armed conflict, displacement or related violence. Such children face a daily threat to their lives, their health and their education. Such children are forced to flee their homes, are pulled out of classrooms, are separated from parents and are exposed to violence that no adult should have to endure, let alone a child.

The damage does not end when the fighting pauses. Trauma, lost education and broken health systems follow children for decades. Britain has a proud history of leadership in this space. It has saved the lives of millions of children through vaccinations, nutrition, clean water and frontline healthcare; through support for UN monitoring and reporting for accountability; and through funding programmes that have helped to secure the release and reintegration of child soldiers. But at a time when the number of armed conflicts is at the highest level since the end of the second world war, the UK is choosing to look away: cutting aid to its lowest level this century with devastating consequences for children.

I will speak briefly about the conflicts that are bringing this issue into sharp focus. In Ukraine, children are growing up under constant missile and drone attacks from Russia. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian children may have been abducted and taken into Russia or Russian-controlled areas without consent and under coercive conditions.

In Gaza, the impact of the conflict on children has been devastating, as we have already heard. Hospitals and schools—places that should be sanctuaries—have been systematically and repeatedly struck. I will never forget the testimony given to the International Development Committee, on which I serve, by a doctor working at a Gaza hospital who was treating children targeted by drone attacks.

Save the Children estimates that over 20,000 children have been killed in Gaza, which is one every hour during the two years of war. Of those children who are still alive in Gaza, UNICEF tells us that there is a ton of emptiness and deep sorrow that can be seen in them. Some 39,000 children have been orphaned and 17,000 children are unaccompanied. Children in Gaza often play in areas that are at risk from explosive ordnance, putting them at high risk of injury or death. In turn, that is leading to high rates of disability; many children have had hands and legs amputated.

These children are suffering from hunger, disease, displacement and cold. Eight infants have died of hypothermia this winter alone, and over 100 children have been killed since the ceasefire. Some children need urgent medical evacuation, which is simply not happening at scale, while others are growing up with trauma that will shape the rest of their lives.

As Israel moves to tighten and in some cases end the registration of international non-governmental organisations, it risks forcing dozens of those INGOs to halt lifesaving operations across the Gaza strip and the west bank. The lifeline agency for Palestinian refugees, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which runs over 700 schools, has had its ability to function curtailed.

In Sudan, one of the world’s most severe and—tragically—most overlooked crises affecting children is unfolding in the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. UNICEF has warned that nearly half a million children are now at risk of acute malnutrition as the conflict intensifies. That is a stark reminder that for many children in Sudan, survival itself is becoming increasingly uncertain. Checkpoints are armed by boys—teenagers—while girls are at risk from endemic sexual violence.

The United Nations continues to verify thousands of cases each year of children being recruited and used by armed groups, which is a grave violation of international law. Children are deployed not only as fighters but as guards, scouts and messengers, exposing them to extreme danger and lifelong trauma. In camps in north Darfur in Sudan, survivors describe how RSF fighters killed parents and abducted children as young as nine, blindfolding them and driving them away. Some were told that they would “look after livestock”, which is a euphemism for enslavement.

The persistence of child recruitment across multiple conflicts reflects the collapse of protection, education and accountability, and preventing it must remain a central test of the international community’s commitment, and indeed of our commitment here in the UK, to the laws of war. Across all these different contexts, the pattern is the same: children are not a sideshow of war, but are among its primary victims. That is why the Government must commit to treating the protection of children not as a secondary concern but as a central pillar of their foreign policy.

First, our diplomacy must put children at the heart of peace efforts. The safety of children—their access to schools and hospitals, and the reunification of families—must be built into peace processes from the beginning. Britain has both the responsibility and the leverage to lead, as a major international actor and as the penholder at the UN Security Council.

Secondly, our humanitarian response must go beyond survival alone. Education must be protected, and schools must be treated as humanitarian spaces in a conflict zone. Mental health support for children affected by conflict should be provided for by core funding. A child who survives war but who is left traumatised, uneducated and unsupported is still a casualty of conflict. If we ignore that trauma, we should not be surprised by the consequences. Entire generations growing up with grief, anger and abandonment become a fertile ground for radicalisation, with many children and young people ending up in terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Thirdly, accountability matters. We must make every effort to ensure that crimes are recorded, that journalists are allowed into conflict zones and that we call out breaches of international humanitarian law wherever they occur. That must apply to allies and adversaries alike, because selective outrage weakens international law. We must name violations consistently, support independent investigations and back consequences when the law is ignored. Finally—

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order.