Madam Vice Chair, Distinguished Delegates, Colleagues,
Seventy-seven years ago, having witnessed the devastation of the Second World War, States came together and adopted the Geneva Conventions.
Today, we see that respect for these rules is eroding. In over 130 armed conflicts, the consequences fall hardest on those already most at risk.
Sexual violence remains a pervasive feature of armed conflict. Thousands of people go missing, leaving families without answers.
Children are recruited, increasingly through online means, and used to participate in hostilities, while attacks on schools deprive them of safe access to education.
Persons with disabilities face barriers and heightened risks. Conflict is driving food insecurity to alarming levels.
And medical personnel continue to be attacked, threatened, detained or killed while carrying out the very duties that international humanitarian law (IHL) protects.
As the Third Committee begins its work during this 81st session of the General Assembly, the ICRC wishes to provide the following regarding agenda items now before the Committee.
Sexual Violence
In 2025 alone, sexual violence perpetrated by armed actors was publicly reported in more than 30 conflict-affected countries, affecting millions of women, men, boys and girls, including persons deprived of their liberty.
In more remote frontline areas where the ICRC is often one of the few actors left, it is not uncommon for our teams to be approached by more than 50 victims/survivors in one day.
Risks of sexual violence are rising, in large part due to the expansion and fragmentation of armed conflict; the proliferation of small arms and light weapons; trust and training gaps among armed actors; and the growing use of information and communication technologies (ICT) by weapon bearers to facilitate or perpetrate acts of sexual violence.
Recent funding decreases across the humanitarian sector have also further compounded the consequences of sexual violence, with numerous frontline service providers forced to suspend their activities from one day to the next.
This has left many victims/survivors both with few options to safely seek help, and at further risk of additional violence, reprisals, or needing to rely on unsafe coping mechanisms.
The ICRC works to prevent, mitigate and respond to sexual violence during armed conflict and other situations of violence by engaging directly with weapon bearers on the frontlines, including by reducing stigma through community outreach together with its Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement partners.
Missing Persons
The number of people going missing in today’s conflicts is unacceptably high. Too many families are being left in the agony of not knowing the fate of their loved ones, and are often not supported.
This is not inevitable. So much more can be done to prevent people from going missing. IHL obliges all parties to armed conflicts to prevent disappearances; to search for, collect, and evacuate the dead without distinction; to account for the missing; and to share any information with families.
In situations of international armed conflicts, States parties to the Geneva Conventions must establish National Information Bureaux to account for protected persons in their hands and transmit this information through the ICRC’s Central Tracing Agency.
This has an important protective function. Parties must treat the deceased with dignity, identify, and, where possible, return mortal remains to families.
Concrete suggestions in this regard are offered in the recently published outcome documents of the Global IHL Initiative, as well as in a recent ICRC report on how non-state armed groups can prevent people from going missing.
Children Affected by Armed Conflict
1) Online recruitment and use in hostilities
The digitalization of armed conflict is transforming the ways in which children can be recruited and used in hostilities.
Physical proximity to armed actors is no longer always necessary. Through social media, messaging applications and online gaming platforms, children are recruited or tasked remotely.
Given their age and evolving capacities, children are particularly vulnerable to manipulation.
Digital technologies may offer new pathways into armed conflict, but the resulting harm to children is no less real.
The law is clear: the prohibition against the recruitment and use of children in hostilities does not stop at the digital frontier.
All States have obligations to take measures to prevent the recruitment and use of children in hostilities, including when related acts are facilitated by information and communication technologies.
The Global IHL Initiative’s Workstream 6 outcome document sets out recommendations as to how governments can improve compliance with these rules in the online sphere.
The principle underpinning these efforts is simple: children must be protected from being drawn into the fight - online as well as offline.
(2) Protection of education
In armed conflicts today, millions of children are denied safe access to education – a trend that continues to rise at alarming rates.
Disruptions to education can entrench cycles of poverty, weaken social cohesion and increase the risk of future conflict.
The protection of education during armed conflict is firmly established in IHL and international human rights law.
We encourage States to develop doctrine and codes of conduct to avoid, to the maximum extent feasible, the use of educational facilities for military purposes.
Persons with Disabilities
Persons with disabilities face specific barriers and risks in armed conflict – from inaccessible warnings, shelters, evacuations and humanitarian assistance, to the risk of being attacked because they are erroneously perceived as a military threat.
The Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which was adopted twenty years ago, specifically requires in its Article 11 that States parties protect persons with disabilities in armed conflict, in line with their obligations under IHL and international human rights law.
For the ICRC, this complementarity between IHL and the CRPD means taking the specific barriers and risks faced by persons with disabilities into account not only in humanitarian responses but also in military policies, training, planning and conduct.
With Switzerland, we organized a State expert meeting on IHL precautions this year which also encouraged States to share their good practices in implementing disability-inclusive precautions, the results of which will be shared shortly.
Food Security and Starvation
Hunger in armed conflict is often the cumulative consequence of actions taken over time. Insecurity prevents farmers from reaching their fields.
Markets are disrupted. Water and electricity systems deteriorate, affecting production and storage. Even disruptions to digital connectivity can deepen food insecurity, impacting supply chains and payment systems.
In short, food systems depend upon interconnected infrastructure and services. Damage and disruption across these systems affect food availability and access far beyond the immediate area of hostilities.
We cannot count on humanitarian relief alone to mitigate these impacts. Parties must comply with the absolute prohibition of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.
They must also respect and protect civilians and civilian objects and uphold the special protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.
Protection of Medical Personnel and Medical Facilities
In armed conflict, medical personnel enjoy specific protection under IHL. They must be respected and protected in all circumstances.
Yet, they are too frequently harmed, threatened, detained, or killed while performing duties the law explicitly safeguards. A wounded person’s right to medical care – and a doctor’s duty to treat them, whether friend or foe – must be recognized, always and everywhere.
Inseparable from the life-saving functions of medical personnel are also those of medical facilities. They too must be respected and protected under IHL to safeguard access by patients to care, and to maintain health systems during armed conflict.
However, today we see a deeply troubling pattern of attacks, misuse and impediments to the functioning of medical facilities.
The outcome document of workstream 5 of the Global IHL Initiative underlines the specific protection of medical facilities under IHL, and proposes practical measures based on State practice.
Madam Vice Chair,
Protecting civilians means upholding the promises states made when they acceded to the 1949 Geneva Conventions.
The Global IHL Initiative provides every state with an opportunity to send a powerful signal that wars must have limits.
We call on all states to make IHL a political priority – including by joining the Initiative. And we encourage the highest-level of participation on December 7th in Jordan at the Humanity in War Conference.
Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.
