Plight of children: Human rights lawyer, Francesca Albanese, will deliver the 23rd Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture under the theme ‘Enhancing Peace and Global Cooperation’. Photo: Supplied
The 23rd Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture urges us to sit quietly and reflect on the state of peace in the world, especially in relation to children in armed conflict. The lecture will be delivered by world-renowned human rights lawyer, Francesca Albanese, under the theme “Enhancing Peace and Global Cooperation” on 25 October in Johannesburg.
Nelson Mandela once said that “peace is the greatest weapon for development that any person can have”, yet today peace has become scarce, especially for children in Congo, Sudan, Mozambique and other conflict territories across the world.
Children are unable to go to school, access healthcare, nutritious meals, and enjoy their inherent right to play and grow. The development of children in conflict zones is limited and diminished; their vulnerability to displacement infringes on their development trajectory as children.
Childhoods robbed of memories of the joy of living in safe communities that extend care, affection and dignity.
Thousands of children are growing up with increased trauma and psychological wounds that put them at risk of being violent, angry and traumatised adults.
In reference to Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala and Song for the Night by Chris Abani, an electrifying and engrossing narrative of the plight of child soldiers in Africa, children are both active participants and victims of war. Both Agu and My Luck symbolise the behavioural implications for children indirectly involved in conflict zones. This draws us to think more attentively about children and their yearning for peaceful societies in Africa.
Albanese’s mandate as a United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories gives her the scope to observe and report on the plight of children’s rights in that conflict.
In her report “genocide as colonial erasure”, she leverages on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, to situate how children in Palestine are not afforded special psychosocial support while exposed to abuse, neglect or armed conflict.
When schools and hospitals become targets of violent attacks, children are the primary victims, sustaining injuries or fatalities.
With ongoing food shortages, based on limited humanitarian assistance in conflict zones, children suffer from severe undernutrition, and their mothers are often unable to breastfeed due to food insecurity and the inability to access a diversified, balanced diet.
In 1993, the year I was born, following a recommendation by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations General Assembly expressed its concern about “the grievous deterioration in the situation of children in many parts of the world as a result of armed conflicts” and thus commissioned Graça Machel as an expert to conduct a thorough study on the impact conflict has on children, including their participation in wars as child soldiers. In her submission of her report in 1996, she concluded that “children are both our reason to struggle to eliminate the worst aspects of warfare, and our best hope for succeeding at it”.
The United Nations Children’s Fund notes that “crimes against children in situations of armed conflict: the killing and maiming of children; their recruitment and use as child soldiers; rape and other grave sexual violence; abduction of children; attacks against schools or hospitals; and denial of humanitarian access to assist children” are violations of human rights.
The interconnected approach by Mandela, Machel and Albanese as champions of children’s rights to development in armed conflict is momentous. Reminding us that even in 2025, humanity has closed its eyes to the plight of children in conflict zones.
When peace deals are broken, due to unaccountable political commitments and unethical leadership among international organisations positioning themselves as peacebuilders and peacekeepers, children are left to suffer and die in unimaginable pain.
Albanese’s lecture should open our eyes to the unjustified experiences of children in conflict zones.
Could there be peace in the world when children are living in fear, aching and uncertain of a secure future? What is global cooperation when Ubuntu is rhetoric and not action towards advancing protection to children in armed conflict?
I recall the words of Agu in the 2015 movie Beasts of No Nation when he says, “The bullet is eating everything. Leaves, trees, ground, person. Just making person to bleed everywhere. We are just like wild animals now with no place to be going. Sun, why are you shining on this world? I am wanting to catch you in my hands, to squeeze you until you cannot shine no more. That way, everything is always dark and nobody is seeing nothing.”
The lecture should call on humanity to open their eyes to the plight of children in armed conflict, so that we can cross into a new era of democratic values with our eyes open for us all to see the sunshine.
Sandile Tshabalala is a master’s candidate at the Centre on African Philanthropy and Social Investment, an affiliate at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, and fellow of the Leading for Humanity Programme at the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.