Safeguarding children from armed conflict

For several years after war erupted in Côte d’Ivoire in 2002, children were recruited to fight on all sides of the conflict. But with the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement last year, such recruitment has essentially ceased, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reported to the Security Council at the end of January. Because children are no longer being conscripted, the Ivorian groups that were previously cited by name in the annexes to the Secretary-General’s annual reports on children in armed conflict have now been “delisted.”