Armed Conflict: Children

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Wednesday 4th February 2026 Westminster Hall

[Tahir Ali (Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. Does she agree that children are often used as tools, and even child soldiers, in many areas of conflict? In Sudan, for example, the conflict between the Rapid Support Forces and the Sudanese armed forces has affected more than 10 million children, 200 of whom have been raped. Wherever possible, we must hold Governments to account, whether in India—where children are being deliberately targeted in Kashmir—Yemen, Sudan or Gaza. We cannot allow these situations, where children are the biggest sufferers, to go on. In my constituency, I see many young men from Afghanistan with mental health issues who are here seeking asylum or as refugees. We must give them the help that they deserve and need.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind Members that the time for this debate is tight, so interventions should be short and to the point.

[Sarah Smith]

Unfortunately, the official numbers no doubt do not represent the full situation yet it is devastating to hear what my hon. Friend says. His intervention also points to a broader challenge, although it is not part of this debate, about the need for the international or global human rights order at the current time, and the importance of organisations such as the International Criminal Court and the UN in upholding that order and campaigning on these critical issues.

What matters now is whether we act on what the research from the UN’s children and armed conflict agenda makes unmistakably clear. Childhoods are being destroyed and places of learning, safety and sanctuary are being decimated. We need to uphold international law and be a country that is promoting peace.

It is welcome that Gaza’s key Rafah border crossing is gradually being reopened. According to local hospitals and the World Health Organisation, about 20,000 sick and wounded Palestinians are waiting to leave Gaza for treatment. Can the Minister inform parliamentarians what discussions have taken place with the Israeli Government on the process for the evacuation of all severely sick children now that the Rafah crossing is beginning to open? Does that allow for humanitarian and medical specialists, UN agencies and civil society organisations to gain access to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to support the unobstructed monitoring and reporting of grave violations against children?

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order. I intend to call the Front-Bench spokespeople at 5.10 pm. That gives us just under 30 minutes, and seven Members are standing; I think three and a half minutes each would be appropriate, but please try to keep interventions brief. I remind Members to keep bobbing before I call somebody to speak.

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[Patricia Ferguson (Glasgow West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Sarah Smith) for securing the debate. I know how interested she is in these issues, and how much she cares about them, so it is good that we are having this debate today.

I make no apologies for enumerating some figures that I think we would all do well to remember. As we have heard, for the second year running, the Occupied Palestinian Territory was the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. In 2024, Israeli armed forces were responsible for 7,188 grave violations against Palestinian children. That means that Israeli forces were responsible for more than one in five of the total number of verified grave violations committed globally in 2024. The verified number of Palestinian children killed and maimed by Israeli forces in 2024 was 3,867. Most instances were caused by the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. As of July 2025, over 40,500 children in Gaza were estimated to have been injured. The occupied Palestinian territory is now home, shamefully, to the largest cohort of child amputees in modern history.

As of July 2025, at least 21,000 children were living with permanent disabilities, which included traumatic brain injuries, burns, complex fractures and hearing loss. The Save the Children report, “Children and Blast Injuries”, explains that the reason for that is because children are uniquely vulnerable to blast injuries, as they are more likely to die as a result of attacks, or to suffer more severe physical harm, in comparison with adults. The situation is compounded by the rise of new weapons technologies such as cluster munitions, and the increase of conflict being conducted in cities, with bombs and drones often striking—in fact, targeting—schools, hospitals and homes. The report makes a number of calls on the Government, one being to publish what would be the first-ever cross-departmental children in conflict strategy. I hope the Minister will address that in his winding-up speech.

I was very pleased that the hon. Member for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant) mentioned education in conflict zones. It is an issue that the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised a number of years ago. He said that those living in conflict zones have the right to expect medical care, and that children in conflict zones should have the right to expect an education, in spite of what is going on around them, no matter how difficult that might be.

I am sure that we all have a view about the board of peace that has been created to look after Palestine and Gaza. I have many concerns about it, but I want to talk about one today: the fact that there is only one woman on the board of peace. I do not for one moment suggest that men do not care about children, but I think that women have a particular perspective. They are often the people who are now left to look after children with no support, often having lost their breadwinner. The Government could use any influence they have to advocate—

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

Order.

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[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.