Ten alarming trends for children in armed conflict (February 2026)

Assessing the most pressing risks facing children in armed conflict.

About

Grave violations against children are now increasing year after year, while the essential services on which children depend for their survival, such as water and sanitation, health care and education, frequently come under sustained attack. Humanitarian actors are frequently denied access to populations in need. Modern warfare, meanwhile, poses an escalating and deadly threat to children in conflicts around the globe.

Beyond devastating individual lives, these harms destabilize families, weaken institutions, cause mass displacement and entrench cycles of violence that undermine peace and security for decades. ‘10 alarming trends for children in armed conflict’ explores the most pressing risks facing children in armed conflict with implications for peace and security.

These trends include:

• Grave violations have become a daily reality for children – and continue to increase.
• Explosive weapons are the leading cause of child casualties in conflict – and the trend is worsening.
• Aerial operations are the dominant category of weapon causing child casualties.
• Attacks on civilian infrastructure including schools, hospitals, water and sanitation facilities remain widespread and alarming.
• Humanitarian workers and frontline responders are increasingly attacked and denied access to reach children in need.
• Violence affecting children in conflict is widespread and global, not isolated to any one crisis or region.
• Displacement of children has surged dramatically.
• Conflict is now consistently a top driver of growing food insecurity and malnutrition.
• Sexual violence against children in conflict settings occurs at nearly twice the global average.
• Widespread funding cuts are constraining life-saving assistance and child protection services, further increasing risks to children’s survival and protection at a time of heightened instability and growing conflict.

What UNICEF is calling for

To reverse these trends, political and security leaders must treat the protection of children in conflicts as a core pillar of international security – not an optional afterthought. At minimum, five key actions must be prioritized:

1. All parties to conflict – and those supporting them – must end and prevent grave violations against children. Children cannot be made to bear the consequences of war not of their making.
2. All parties to conflict must uphold international humanitarian law, including the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precautions during military operations. This also means protecting children and the infrastructure they rely on.
3. All parties to conflict and those supporting them must prioritize ending the use of explosive weapons in populated areas. This includes halting the transfer of explosive weapons to warring parties likely to use them in densely populated areas with devastating impacts on children and the infrastructure they rely on.
4. Member States should unequivocally denounce attacks on children, reject their normalization, and hold perpetrators accountable. This means investing the political capital and funding required to facilitate monitoring and reporting of violations against children, strengthening accountability mechanisms that combat impunity, provide assistance to victims and ensure child survivors can seek justice and access reparations.
5. All actors directly or indirectly engaging in conflict must proactively support sustained diplomatic engagement for peace and to secure safe, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access, both critical to protecting children and reduce preventable death, displacement and suffering for millions of children trapped in war.