Director-General/Executive Director
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am very pleased to join you today at this event addressing the climate crisis as a threat multiplier for violence against children.
From an early age, children understand the basic concept of fairness.
Today’s children had no role in causing the climate crisis, but it is forcing them to grow up in a world where they are more vulnerable to hardship, violence, and exploitation.
It is not fair. They know it, and we know it.
Climate change is leaving one billion children at extremely high risk, including hundreds of millions exposed to heatwaves, cyclones, flooding, and other disasters.
Displaced, forced to travel unaccompanied, or pushed into poverty, many of the children affected by climate change are exposed to environments and situations where they are far more likely to face violence.
And the consequences go beyond the immediate hardship caused by climate-related devastation.
Climate change is creating a more volatile planet, and with it more volatile societies that are more prone to abusive, exploitative, or violent behaviour towards their children.
Poverty, inequality, food insecurity, and political and economic instability are catalysts for violence against children.
Climate change could push up to 132 million people into extreme poverty by 2030, while extreme climate events continue to severely disrupt agricultural production and compromise food security and livelihoods around the world.
Such difficult conditions create fertile ground for desperation and exploitation.
Vulnerable children are forced to work, forced to marry, forced to endure rising levels of violence in their communities and in their homes.
Those who live in the most affected countries and regions find themselves most vulnerable, even as climate change and its consequences further deepen inequalities, across borders and within societies.
As we approach the COP27 climate conference in November, the international community is working towards crucial steps to reduce emissions, protect ecosystems, and ensure a fair transition to a greener way of life, to prevent and mitigate the future consequences of climate change.
It is just as important to be ready to help the children who are suffering and will suffer horrific experiences as a result of the consequences that are already unfolding.
To ensure that we can protect them, we need strong, effective, and compassionate justice systems.
Criminal justice systems around the world, and especially in countries most affected by climate change, must have the capacities, resources, and conviction to bring perpetrators of violence against children to justice and hold them accountable, even in the midst of competing priorities.
Justice systems must also be able to deal with children who come into contact with the law, to recognize victims and give them the help they deserve, and not to put them at greater risk of being victimized again by blindly applying punitive measures.
We must prioritize child protection, and put in place the laws, policies, and cooperation frameworks to enable its application.
Through our Global Programme to end Violence Against Children, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime is providing technical assistance to more than fifty Member States in developing justice systems capable of responding to violence against children, and in empowering children as agents of change to live free from violence.
We are collaborating closely with SRSG M’jid and her office to help countries integrate child protection into their security, rule of law, and development efforts.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the SRSG’s office, and the European Union, for co-organizing today’s event, and for their dedication to this important topic.
We are committed to working with all of you, and with children and young people, to integrate the protection of children into the climate response.
Ladies and gentlemen,
If we want to protect children from violence, we need to talk to them, listen to them, and empower them to play a role in preserving their own future.
Before I conclude, I would like to direct a few words to Michelle, our 14-year-old participant from Kenya, who is at this event today speaking for her generation.
Dear Michelle,
We are with you.
We will not abandon you to an uncertain future.
We will not surrender to a world where it is more common or acceptable for you to suffer violence.
It is our responsibility, and it is your right.
Thank you.