A/HRC/22/55 105. An estimated 526,000 people die violently every year; in the large majority of cases, in non-conflict settings.17 Young males are at high risk of homicide owing to their participation in street fighting, street crime, gang membership, possession of arms and other violence-prone activities.18 Women and girls are predominantly targeted by intimate and gender-based violence and in many nations family related homicide is the major cause of female deaths. 106. Poor rule of law and weak law enforcement performance facilitate the use of small arms, which in turn is associated with higher levels of homicide and organized crime and paves the way to a culture of impunity and increased levels of violence. 107. Lethal violence and lack of security also compromise human development, being associated with higher levels of poverty and hunger, lower primary education enrolment and higher infant mortality rates.19 This pattern compromises the safeguard of children’s safety and wellbeing, contributes to increased levels of domestic violence and may disrupt access to health services, education and social support, deepening children’s vulnerability and deprivation. 108. Children from disadvantaged communities are attractive targets for organized criminal activities. Through coercion, social pressure or the promise of financial reward, they are at risk of recruitment and manipulation to hold or deliver drugs or weapons, carry out petty crime, beg on the streets or become involved in other exploitative activities. At the same time, for young people lacking genuine educational and economic opportunities and living in socially excluded neighbourhoods, participation in gang culture may be perceived as a way of gaining status and recognition; according to some studies, as many as 15 per cent of all youth in gang-affected communities may end up joining a gang, 15 being the typical age of gang entry.20 109. Against this background, public fear of gang violence and youth crime has generated social pressure for the criminalization of children and adolescents, together with a call for a lower minimum age of criminal responsibility and longer sentences of imprisonment. This has been accompanied by media stigmatization of children belonging to disadvantaged groups and a culture of tolerance of institutionalized violence against them. D. Cost of violence 110. Aggravated by poverty and vulnerability, climate change and natural disasters, armed violence and organized crime, violence is a serious risk for children’s health, education and development. 111. But beyond the cost to each individual victim, violence has serious costs for households, communities and national economies. As noted by the World Health Organization,21 meeting the direct costs of health, criminal justice and social welfare responses to violence diverts many billions of dollars from more constructive societal spending. The much larger indirect costs of violence due to lost productivity and lost investment in education work together to slow economic development, increase socioeconomic inequality and erode human and social capital. 17 18 19 20 21 Geneva Declaration Secretariat, Global Burden of Armed Violence: Lethal Encounters (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 1. UNODC, Global Study on Homicide (Vienna, 2011), p. 12. Geneva Declaration Secretariat, Global Burden, p. 146. Geneva Declaration Secretariat, Global Burden of Armed Violence (2008), p. 129. Preventing violence and reducing its impact: How development agencies can help, (2008), p. 7. 21