“The documented cases of crimes against children in conflict zones are horrific, yet these figures likely only scratch the surface. With an estimated 473 million children – or 19% globally – living in conflict areas, each of these children has a unique story and conflict experience”[1].

– Save the Children

For most television viewers and social media consumers, the names Gaza, Yemen, Ukraine, Sudan, Haiti and Syria evoke images of ruins or sprawling refugee camps. The night skies are illuminated by the trajectories of missiles or explosions of infrastructure vital for local populations. In other news reports, we see parched regions where the arid soil no longer supports any agriculture, with people looking haggard and despondent. Cameras show men clearing debris, protesting, speaking to the media or posing as victors, brandishing weapons and flags. Women, men and children lie on hospital beds, injured or with amputations. The cameras cannot capture the infinite distress that the conflicts and natural disasters ravaging these regions impose on civilians. Parents feel the threats looming over their children, who no longer have shelter. How can they protect a daughter who has to traverse a camp made of tents at night to find the toilets? How can they prevent a son from being recruited as a soldier? How can women be protected from physical violence, when they are not even safe in peaceful countries? How can they obtain food and water when there is none? These are only short-term concerns. What future awaits these men, women and children who must live in a nightmare that never ends? The fate of children, who are often orphans, on the run, displaced, recruited or threatened by sexual violence, must concern us here.

In 2023, 460 million children were living in conflict zones and 43.3 million had been forcibly displaced; according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), “This figure has doubled in the space of a decade, and is the highest recorded since the Second World War”[2]. Since 2013, then, a number of countries – most of them members of the United Nations, whose conventions on children’s rights they have either ratified or at least signed – have succeeded in doubling the number of children forced to abandon a living environment that guaranteed them security and equilibrium. Conflicts that they do not understand expose these children to threats for which their families are unprepared. The lack of food, water and hygiene facilities goes hand in hand with the loss of a regular living environment: school, the playground, family meals, relaxation and sleep. This life is replaced by constant displacement, loss of landmarks, physical threats, under-age marriages and recruitment as child soldiers. It doesn’t take a great deal of foresight to work out that these crimes against half a billion young human beings are creating generations who are growing up in an environment of desolation, destruction and hatred, which they risk passing on to their children. Babies born of forced marriages or rape will hardly know a secure family environment and will become easy victims, while young people lacking education and vocational training will quickly be lured by the promise of illegal, fast profits, whether from the drugs trade, human trafficking or organ theft.

In its Constitution, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that “a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind”[3]. That struggles for political and economic power are at the root of conflicts is a truism. It should be noted, however, that in the twentieth century, many States sought and found a certain moral and intellectual solidarity when they undertook to define the rights of the child and to give them a normative basis.

The League of Nations Child Welfare Committee

The League of Nations, created in 1919, set up the Child Welfare Committee in 1924 (it ceased operations in 1937). This little-known committee is nevertheless significant, as it is one of the first illustrations of a transnational approach, an innovative concept after a war that had pitted blocs of nations against each other. In the analyses by the Child Welfare Committee, we find certain approaches had already started to emerge in the nineteenth century, albeit in a more scattered fashion: “There was a parallel emergence of networks focusing on infant protection, while others specialised in education, the fight against prostitution, and abandoned or delinquent children. It was within the latter network that the first attempt was made to group together at international level”[4]. However, an International Association for the Protection of Children (Association internationale de protection de l’enfance) set up in Brussels in 1913 had seen its activities interrupted by the war. The millions of orphans and refugees left behind by the Great War had given rise to a new surge of mutual aid, whether through the Red Cross, the Save the Children Fund (created in 1919), or the International Save the Children Union (1920), based in Geneva[5].

In 1921, experts from some thirty nations met in Brussels to revive the idea of an international association for child protection. The youth of the League of Nations and the absence of a concept of multilateral collaboration – later embodied by the United Nations – meant that numerous national committees or working groups existed side by side, with very specific fields of action that they intended to defend. “The International Labour Organization dealt with young workers, the League of Nations with the trafficking of women and children, and hygiene issues; as for private associations, the International Save the Children Union and the League of Red Cross Societies took over the field of humanitarian and health assistance”[6]. The Brussels Congress did result in the creation of an International Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare (IAPCW), which intended to take action against juvenile delinquency. However, it was weakened from the outset: it did not admit the former Central Empires and the Anglo-Saxon States who, preferring the Red Cross and the International Save the Children Union, opposed its membership of the League of Nations. Reduced to an association of private organisations, the IAPCW lost its general secretariat, which was transferred from Brussels to Geneva and integrated into the Advisory Committee for the Protection of Children. This committee’s remit gradually shifted to the normative sphere, as it was mandated to prepare ad hoc decisions for the League of Nations. Throughout its existence, the committee suffered from a lack of resources, both financial and human, and from tensions between its various members. In 1937, it was transformed into the Advisory Committee on Social Questions, which foreshadowed the Economic and Social Committee of the future United Nations[7].

Declarations, conventions, protocols, committees…

The Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child[8], adopted on 26 September 1924 by the League of Nations, was the first international text to recognise the rights of children and the responsibilities of adults towards them. Although it states that “mankind owes to the Child the best that it has to give”[9], we must note with resignation that all too often it gives to the child the worst of itself. The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that “childhood [is] entitled to special care and assistance”[10], an assistance that the United Nations (which took up the Geneva Declaration of 1924) entrusted to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), created in 1946 to help (European) children who were victims of the Second World War. In the early 1950s, UNICEF extended its activities to disadvantaged children throughout the world.

On 20 November 1959, the United Nations unanimously adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which reiterated the importance of free education, appropriate medical care and social services and, above all, an environment that guarantees “love and understanding” (principle VI)[11]. In 1966, two international covenants adopted by the United Nations[12] supplemented the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights: the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights[13]. These covenants affirmed children’s rights that had already been recognised by previous declarations. The International Labour Organization’s Convention 138, adopted in 1973, sets the minimum age for employment (between 15 and 18 years)[14].

Adopted 65 years after the Declaration of Geneva, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child was “The first legally binding text that protects the rights of children […] [and] the most comprehensive text for the protection of children’s rights, [as it addresses] all aspects of children’s rights”[15]. In its 54 articles, the Convention sets out the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of all children, citing four basic principles: non-discrimination; the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child. Adopted unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989, it came into force less than a year later, following ratification by 20 States. To date (August 2024), the Convention has been signed by all the Member States of the United Nations, with the exception of the United States[16].

Globalisation has created markets where the poorest people produce for the profit of industrial companies, and it is imposing other normative instruments whose wording reflects a deplorable development. The Geneva Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, adopted in 1999 by the International Labour Organization[17], lists the worst forms of child labour: slavery, the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage, serfdom, forced or compulsory labour; forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict; the use of children in prostitution or in the production of pornographic materials or performances; and the use, procuring or offering of children for illicit activities, such as the production or sale of drugs. This convention was supplemented in 2000 and 2011 by three Optional Protocols. The application of these texts is monitored by the Committee on the Rights of the Child:

The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the body of 18 independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by its States parties. It also monitors implementation of the Optional Protocols to the Convention, on involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

Over the past 30 years, children’s lives have been transformed by the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. The Convention on the Rights of the Child has inspired governments to change laws and policies, so more children get the healthcare and nutrition they need. There are better safeguards in place to protect children from violence and exploitation. More children have their voices heard and participate in society. But there is still more work to be done[18].

… And everything is still to be done

“The law is effective only if complied with.”
– International Committee of the Red Cross[19]

All these declarations, conventions and protocols bear witness to the efforts made over more than a century to protect children and guarantee them a youth free from threats and dangers. However, the polarisation of today’s societies also show the extent to which all these documents, drawn up over many years and ratified after even more years, remain a dead letter.

In a press release dated 5 June 2023, UNICEF noted that “more than 300,000 serious violations against children in conflict [have been] verified worldwide in [the] past 18 years. At least 120,000 children [were] killed or maimed by wars around the world across continents since 2005, an average of almost 20 a day”[20]. Between 2005 and 2022, more than 120,000 children were killed and mutilated, at least 105,000 were recruited by armed forces or groups, 32,000 were abducted and more than 16,000 were victims of sexual violence. 16,000 schools and hospitals were attacked and 22,000 children were denied access to humanitarian aid[21].

Published in 2023 as part of the Oslo Conference for Protecting Children in Armed Conflict, this press release could not take into account today’s ongoing conflicts or the destruction of Gaza, with the targeted bombing of its schools and hospitals. Official figures can obviously only take into account confirmed cases, so the death toll is undoubtedly much higher.

Documents, debates, press releases and figures do not reflect the desolation in which children in a conflict zone have to grow up. Facing violence every day, driven from their homes, deprived of their friends and their reassuring daily routine, unable to sleep, seeing their loved ones killed and their homes destroyed, and suffering the effects of hunger, filth, violence and constant fear, how do they live and survive? What is the point of texts that guarantee their rights to freedom, education, a stable environment, food, drinking water and decent housing, when all these rights are trampled underfoot before their very eyes? It is certainly no consolation to suppose that a large proportion of these children are unaware that they have rights.

The right to go to school is violated in conflict zones

“Children and education systems are often on the front line of violent conflict”[22]. Much more than a setting for learning academic subjects, a school is a social melting pot: it’s a place where you make friends, compete, play games, play sport and learn about the values inherent in science, philosophy, music, art and literature. Schooling – along with its ups and downs – is an important phase in the life of every young person, because it gives them the opportunity to measure themselves against others, to experience the joy of success or the disappointment of failure, experiences that are indispensable to adult life. The familiarity of the classroom, the route to school and the regularity of a timetable all contribute to a secure rhythm of life.

It is unfortunate that the absence of such a regular framework, the cancellation of courses, the destruction of school buildings or the abduction of young people attending school are increasingly frequent phenomena. They affect not only children in conflict zones but also the fifty million or so young refugees who, separated from their parents and often from their cultures, remain deprived of the means to train and educate themselves – with obvious consequences for future societies.

These consequences are manifold: children who live with constant violence develop serious traumas that can manifest themselves in emotional withdrawal, an inability to form normal relationships, aggressive behaviour, as well as self-mutilation, drug abuse and suicide attempts. Hundreds of thousands of young people who have known nothing but violence and aggression, without any psychological help, who have not learned even the basics of school subjects or vocational training, are easy victims for all the traps set for them by criminal and irresponsible adults. Education in a structured setting – even, where possible, inside a besieged city or refugee camp – would help young people to alleviate their trauma and share their experiences. It would also reassure their parents, who would know that their children were protected and had access to meals, drinking water and toilets. As stated on the UNICEF website:

A child’s right to education cannot be safeguarded in conflict zones without education itself being protected. Education can be a life-saver. Out of school, children are easy targets of abuse, exploitation and recruitment by armed forces and groups. School should provide a safe space where children can be protected from threats and crises. It is also a critical step to breaking the cycle of crisis and reduces the likelihood of future conflicts[23].

But in too many places, schools are no longer safe places. On 13 March 2024, the United Nations reported that more than 3,400 schools in Ukraine had been damaged and 365 completely destroyed since the start of the Russian aggression.

Recent figures indicate that at least 1.5 million internally displaced persons are children, of whom around 225,000 are of school age. Around three out of four children have witnessed the bombardments and artillery fire at first hand. Teachers have also been affected, with an estimated 43,000 displaced by the conflict[24].

The United Nations estimates that in the Gaza Strip, 80% of school buildings (housing some 228,000 pupils and more than 8,500 teachers) have been hit by targeted attacks. These attacks – motivated by the assumption that the schools are being used as a refuge by Hamas terrorists – have further aggravated an educational situation that has been severely weakened by a long blockade[25].

The right not to wage war, or to be subjected to it, exists only on paper

“According to UNICEF, more than 230 million children (nearly one in ten worldwide) live in countries or areas affected by armed conflict. 125 million of them are directly affected by the fighting around the world. The UN has verified 266,000 cases of grave violations against children in over 30 conflict situations since the monitoring mechanism was established in 2005”[26].

Exposed to the sounds and horrors of combat and especially vulnerable to recruitment as child soldiers – a term that does not just refer to active combatants. As set out in the Paris Principles:

“A child associated with an armed force or armed group” refers to any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities[27].

At the end of the 1990s, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Terre des Hommes, Jesuit Refugee Service, the Quaker United Nations Office (Geneva) and Save the Children relaunched the discussion around a ban on recruiting young people under the age of 18 into armies – at the time, the minimum age in force in some armies was 15. This ‘straight 18’ policy led to the adoption in 2000 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. Article 2 of the Protocol stipulates that “States Parties shall ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 18 years are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces”, while Article 4 expresses an unrealistic wish: “Armed groups, distinct from the armed forces of a State, should not under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years”[28].

In its Agenda 2030, the United Nations set “eradicating poverty in all its forms, everywhere in the world” as the first sustainable development goal[29]. Coupled with the absence of support structures and a reassuring family environment, the precarious living conditions in megacities, where entire districts are run by mafia groups, only increase the vulnerability of young people, who are then tempted to seek (and sometimes find) a form of protection, if not social status, in armed groups. Others are forced to join: their abduction destabilises and weakens their families and villages, undermining an already precarious social balance:

Children are recruited into armed forces or armed groups because they are seen as being easily manipulated, not fully aware of the dangers involved, and having comparatively undeveloped notions of right and wrong. In some instances, they have been armed with lethal weapons or plied with alcohol and drugs to incite them to violence and fearlessness or forced to become dependent on the group that has recruited them. Unable or too fearful to find a way out, these children have sometimes become ‘loose cannons,’ a danger to themselves and others. However, children associated with armed forces or armed groups suffer physically, psychologically and socially: the effects of their involvement in conflict often persist long after the fighting has stopped[30].

The situation is especially worrying in Africa, where almost 40% of the population is under the age of 15. In a 2022 report[31], the United Nations noted that the countries of Central and West Africa are a new epicentre for the recruitment of child soldiers, particularly because of the resurgence of Islamist militant movements. Beyond the Sahel, the situation is most concerning in South Sudan. In 2005, the United Nations Security Council established a monitoring and reporting mechanism on the recruitment of child soldiers in its Resolution 1612[32]. National committees analyse the situation in their respective countries (places of recruitment, groups responsible, methods of exploitation) and send their reports to the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.

However, these analyses and reports are not enough: we must also insist again and again on the fact (often deliberately ignored) that the recruitment of children under the age of 15 in an armed conflict is a war crime[33]. But, as we know, where there is no complainant, there is no accused.

However, we must not give up in the face of situations that are becoming increasingly serious, depending on the region. The major multinational and multilateral organisations, the countless non-governmental organisations working with commitment in the field, and the standard-setting instruments designed to protect children and guarantee them a peaceful youth, are realities. They must succeed in convincing the governments and armed groups that recruit children that the future and moral well-being of societies depend on children who have the chance to grow up without violence or hunger, surrounded by loving families and with access to a decent education. Governments that bomb schools and hospitals, denying children and young people the chance to build a future and heal their wounds, must also be clearly condemned.

The right to food is belied by the figures

“Every child who starves to death is murdered.[34]”

– Jean Ziegler

Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. […] Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance”[35]. Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1966 and ratified by 172 States[36], recognises “the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger”[37], making it binding on all signatory States.

In 2001, the first United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, defined this right as “the right to have regular, permanent and free access, either directly or by means of financial purchases, to quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs, and which ensures a physical and mental, individual and collective, fulfilling and dignified life free of fear”[38].

This free and regular access to food is not guaranteed in a large number of regions. Regional conflicts, wars, deforestation, climate change, the effects of globalisation and the misuse of natural resources are all causes of the alarming figures for the early 2020s. In Afghanistan, 4 million children under the age of five are suffering from acute malnutrition; 2.2 million children in Yemen, 1 million in Kenya and almost 2 million in Somalia are dying of hunger; and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo 1.1 million children are not reaching the age of five. On 9 July 2024, the United Nations announced in a press release that, according to independent experts sent to the region, “famine has spread throughout Gaza strip”:

Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on 30 May 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on 1 June 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on 3 June 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare […]. With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza[39].

In conclusion: let’s chase the darkness away from the cradle!

Deprived of a living environment that is not in ruins, a cherished parent who has not been killed, a school playground where they could find their friends and uninterrupted sleep at night, and suffering from hunger, thirst, diseases and sexual violence, millions of children around the world are being denied the most basic human rights. Stripped of their right to go to school and to eat their fill without having to steal or prostitute themselves, and surrounded by the constant noise of airstrikes or the silence of an ever-expanding desert, they will grow up traumatised, having lost all the markers that make a society thrive. Sick in body and mind, often without their parents, their fear and loneliness must be infinite.

Despite the existence of many treaties, pacts, conventions, conferences and protocols dedicated to improving the children’s plight, their effectiveness remains questionable. However, convinced that dialogue must always prevail, that every exchange allows for rapprochements, and that giving up is not an option, major multinational organisations and non-governmental organisations are continuing to fight for the most deprived, whose childhoods are being stolen.

Let us give the final word to Victor Hugo, who on 22 September 1862, addressed the members of the International Congress of Social Sciences: “The child has in its cradle the peace or the war of the future. It is from this cradle that darkness must be driven away. Let us bring the dawn into childhood.”[40]

Footnotes

[1] Save the Children, “World more dangerous than ever for children with crimes in conflict at highest level in 2023,” press release, 31 October 2024, https://www.savethechildren.net/news/world-more-dangerous-ever-children-crimes-conflict-highest-level-2023.

[2] “Les enfants dans les conflits” [translated from French], UNICEF,  https://www.unicef.fr/convention-droits-enfants/urgences/conflits-armes/enfants-et-conflits/.

[3] “Constitution,” UNESCO, https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution.

[4] Joëlle Droux, “La tectonique des causes humanitaires: Concurrences et collaborations autour du Comité de protection de l’enfance de la Société des Nations (1880–1940),” Relations internationales 3, no. 151 (2013): 79–80.

[5] Joëlle Droux, “L’internationalisation de la protection de l’enfance: acteurs, concurrences et projets transnationaux (1900-1925),” Critique internationale 3, no. 52 (2011): 19–23.

[6] Droux, “La tectonique,” 80.

[7] Droux, “L’internationalisation,” 26–32.

[8] League of Nations, Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924), http://www.un-documents.net/gdrc1924.htm.

[9] League of Nations, Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1924).

[10] G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (10 December 1948).

[11] G.A. Res. 1386 (XIV), Declaration on the Rights of the Child (20 November 1959).

[12] G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (16 December 1966).

[13] Signed by Luxembourg on 26 November 1974, these covenants were ratified on 18 August 1983.

[14] International Labour Organization, Minimum Age Convention, 26 June 1973, no. 138, UNTS 14862.

[15] “Definition of the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” Humanium, https://www.humanium.org/en/convention/definition/.

[16] Signed by Luxembourg on 21 March 1990, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified by the Chamber of Deputies on 7 March 1994.

[17] International Labour Organization, Worst Forms of Labour Convention, 17 June 1999, no. 182, UNTS 2133, 161.

[18] “Treaty Bodies: Committee on the Rights of the Child,” Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, https://www.ohchr.org/en/treaty-bodies/crc.

[19] International Committee of the Red Cross, Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (2013), 5.

[20] UNESCO, “More Than 300,000 Grave Violations Against Children in Conflict Verified Worldwide in Past 18 Years,” press release, 5 June 2023, https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/more-300000-grave-violations-against-children-conflict-verified-worldwide-past-18.

[21] UNESCO, “Grave Violations.”

[22] Global Education Monitoring Report Team, The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education (UNESCO, 2011), https://doi.org/10.54676/CIHD8631.

[23] “Education Under Attack,” UNICEF, https://www.unicef.org/education-under-attack.

[24] UN News, “Guerre en Ukraine: plus de 3.500 établissements d’enseignement endommagés ou détruits,” UN press release [translated from French], 13 March 2024, https://news.un.org/fr/story/2024/03/1144001.

[25] UN News, “Gaza: plus de 200 écoles directement touchées depuis le début de l’opération militaire israélienne, selon l’ONU,” UN press release [translated from French], 27 March 2024, https://news.un.org/fr/story/2024/03/1144396.

[26] “Children and armed conflicts,” Permanent mission of France to the United Nations in New York, 18 March 2022, https://onu.delegfrance.org/children-and-armed-conflicts-10458.

[27] UNICEF, The Paris Principles: Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (UN General Assembly, 2007). This definition is also used by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

[28] G.A. Res. 54/263, Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, arts. 2 and 4.

[29] “Sustainable Development Goal 1,” United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal1.

[30] International Committee of the Red Cross, Children Associated, 4.

[31] UN Secretary-General, Children and Armed Conflict: Rep. of the Secretary-General, UN doc. A/76/871–S/2022/493 (23 June 2022).

[32] S.C. Res. 1612 (26 July 2005).

[33] Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, art. 8, ¶ 2(b)xxvi, UN doc. A/CONF.183/9 (17 July 1998).

[34] Jean Ziegler, Betting on Famine. Why the World Still Goes Hungry (The New Press, 2013), 1963.

[35] G.A. Res. 217 (III) A, art. 25.

[36] Ratified by Luxembourg on 18 August 1983.

[37] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, art. 11 ¶ 2, 16 December 1966, UNTS 14531.

[38] UN Economic and Social Council, Report by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, 2, UN doc. E/CN.4/2001/53 (7 February 2001).

[39] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “UN Experts Declare Famine Has Spread Throughout Gaza Strip,” UN press release, 9 July 2024, https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/07/un-experts-declare-famine-has-spread-throughout-gaza-strip.

[40] Letter from Victor Hugo on compulsory education. The letter was read in Brussels at the meeting of the Association internationale pour le progrès des sciences sociales on 23 September 1862 and published in Le Progrès. Journal de l’éducation populaire, no. 32 (4 October 1863): cxxvi.