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Executive Summary

Across the globe, a dramatic gap exists between efforts and outcomes in realizing accountability for grave violations against children in situations of armed conflict. This report illustrates the “accountability gap” and presents practical opportunities for advancing efforts to achieve more effective accountability.

While some national and international mechanisms have made notable progress, for the most part they have not achieved effective accountability. Perpetrators are rarely held to account. Efforts to include or prioritize children in non-judicial efforts tend to be weak and sporadic. Prevention efforts do not always guarantee children a safer and more secure future. Children seldom benefit from tangible improvements to their environment and quality of life as a result of accountability initiatives. Moreover, most relevant mechanisms are not designed to focus specifically on children in situations of armed conflict.

In part this “accountability gap” is due to the lack of clear and comprehensive tools for addressing accountability.
There is no common definition of accountability in the context of children and armed conflict nor are there sufficient evaluation tools. As a starting point, this report presents a working definition of accountability for violations against children in situations of armed conflict. In this context, accountability is conceived of as an action or series of actions taken to achieve outcomes in the following categories: (1) imposing legitimate consequences for perpetrators, (2) assigning responsibility for violations committed, (3) preventing or deterring future violations and (4) reconciling and repairing traumatized societies and individuals. In most cases, the achievement of accountability will be increasingly effective as more of these actions are successfully completed. A set of indicators assists in evaluating existing accountability mechanisms.