Jacob Turner, a member of the Jewish Diplomatic Corps of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), addressed a special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on the rights of children in armed conflict on behalf of the WJC, condeming the "cowardly use of children to gain military advantage and their tragic injury or death to shape public opinion."
The Jewish Diplomatic Corps is a worldwide network of young Jewish professionals acting in the fields of diplomacy and public policy. It now comprises a cadre of some 130 professionals aged 27 to 45, from more than 30 countries.
The WJC's Geneva Representative Tom Gal also attended the session in Geneva.
Following is Turner's full statement to the Human Rights Council:
"Wars are no longer just fought on battlefields. They are fought through televisions, newspapers, YouTube and Twitter. In these new wars, children are not just victims. They are also used as weapons.
"The World Jewish Congress commends the work of the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in her initiatives to minimize the use of child soldiers. In the Middle East and elsewhere, we increasingly see the horrifying spectacle of children being used as suicide bombers. In the past few days we witnessed the shocking ISIL video in which a child was used to execute a prisoner. Through international instruments such as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, there is a growing consensus against child soldiers.
"But the use of children as direct combatants is only part of the problem. Children are also used as weapons when they are deliberately placed in the line of fire. Children are cynically encouraged, taught and brainwashed to risk their lives. Either way, the choice is not truly theirs. They are forced or convinced into remaining in the field of combat with the aim of shielding combatants or worse.
"Supporters of these combatants then come before the Human Rights Council and other UN bodies to condemn such children being killed or wounded. Children require special protection in conflicts. But this notion is cheapened by the cowardly use of children to gain military advantage and their tragic injury or death to shape public opinion.
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The world community must call for an end to this hypocrisy. If you, states members of this Council, truly believe in your responsibility to protect children you should not turn a blind eye to this abuse of the law and its fundamental principles.
"Children should not play an active part in wars. As well as the use of children as direct combatants, the Human Rights Council should condemn the exploitation of children as human shields, which violates international law and undermines the goals that this Council claims to uphold."
UN Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment Juan Méndez called for modifications and alternatives to the detention processes of children in order to ensure their human rights. In his report to the UN Human Rights Council, Méndez highlighted the relationship between detention and ill-treatment of children and called for UN member states to employ higher standards of classification for punishments that are defined as cruel and degrading, especially when applied to children.
In a separate speech to a Human Rights Council panel on children's rights, Jacob Turner said: "Where education foments hatred, then conflicts will only be prolonged. Whether through school textbooks or online radicalization, we see how children are taught to see those of minority faiths as being less than human, fear those who are different and glorify the perpetrators of terror. This leads to a vicious cycle of conflict, as the students of today become the soldiers, the scholars and the diplomats of tomorrow."
He urged to build "an education system that is a basic entitlement, not a luxury", to "teach students tolerance and not blind hate", and to "empower and envision a successful future for girls as well as boys."
"Only then we can look our children in the eye and say we truly gave them a chance for a better future," Turner told the council members.
