A/HRC/40/28 the entire families of accompanied children. 18 States must ensure care arrangements for unaccompanied children that prevent their recruitment by terrorist or other armed groups, in particular by refusing guardianship to persons directly or indirectly involved in terrorism or conflict, and children should not be returned to a State where there is a real risk of recruitment. 19 An insecure or precarious migration status can have particularly negative effects on children already traumatized by acts of terrorism, and so States should ensure access to clear and child-friendly status determination procedures. 20 Any young person claiming to be a child must be treated as such unless and until there is definitive proof to the contrary.21 27. Some terrorist groups with effective control of territories have constrained or denied access by girls to education, health care and public life. States receiving girls fleeing such territories should provide appropriate support to redress gender-based abuse and give due consideration to supporting them to complete their education even after they have reached the age of majority.22 III. Children at perceived risk of recruitment A. State duty to prevent recruitment of children 28. Terrorist groups may seek to recruit or otherwise exploit children for various reasons, including a dwindling of support and thus of potential adult recruits, ease of manipulation, the relative lack of suspicion raised by children, local attitudes regarding childhood and child labour, propaganda value, or a desire for continuity and succession. 23 29. In its resolution 1373 (2001), the Security Council provides that States should suppress terrorist recruitment. Preventing the recruitment of children forms part of the broader obligation to prevent the exploitation of children under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The factors that may place children at greater risk of association with a terrorist group also place them at greater risk of other forms of exploitation, including sale, trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Elements of the security threat posed by terrorist groups may be unique, but this should not be extrapolated to a conclusion that their recruitment methods are unique or require untested or draconian preventive approaches that focus on the child as a potential risk rather than potentially at risk of exploitation. Measures to prevent the recruitment of children by terrorist groups must be adequate, proportionate, reasonable, non-discriminatory, non-arbitrary, effective and justified. 30. The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy identifies a number of conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, including unresolved conflicts, lack of rule of law, poor governance, violations of human rights, discrimination, political exclusion and socioeconomic marginalization. States with higher levels of gender equality are less likely 18 19 20 21 22 23 See joint general comment No. 4 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 23 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on State obligations regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration in countries of origin, transit, destination and return, section B. See Committee on the Rights of the Child, general comment No. 6 (2005) on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, para. 55. See joint general comment No. 4/No. 23, para. 18. See joint general comment No. 3 (2017) of the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families/No. 22 (2017) of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the general principles regarding the human rights of children in the context of international migration, para. 32. See joint general comment No. 4/No. 23 Child, para. 60. Siobhan O’Neil, “Trajectories of children into and out of non-State armed groups” in Cradled by Conflict: Child Involvement with Armed Groups in Contemporary Conflict, Siobhan O’Neil and Kato van Broeckhoven, eds. (United Nations University, 2018). 7