A/HRC/40/49 I. Introduction 1. The present report covers the period from December 2017 to December 2018 and is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 72/245, in which the Assembly requested the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict to submit a report to the Human Rights Council on the activities undertaken in fulfilment of her mandate, including information on her field visits, on the progress achieved and the challenges remaining on the children and armed conflict agenda. In the report, the Special Representative also elaborates on the activities she has undertaken with regard to the request of the General Assembly in resolution 72/245 to increase her engagement with States, United Nations bodies and agencies, regional organizations and especially subregional organizations, and to increase public awareness activities, including by collecting, assessing and disseminating best practices and lessons learned, in accordance with her mandate. II. Challenges and progress in ending and preventing grave violations 2. As the world celebrated the seventieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the sixtieth anniversary of the Genocide Convention, and is about to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, rights contained in those milestone documents are under threat. Protracted and high-intensity conflicts, cyclical spikes in violence, operations to counter violent extremism and crossborder operations by armed forces and groups have continued to disproportionately affect children around the world. The dehumanization of civilian populations by parties to conflict has led to increased violations and blatant disregard for international law. 3. In a number of countries on the children and armed conflict agenda, continued fighting between parties to conflict over influence and territory had a devastating effect on children’s lives during 2018. In Afghanistan, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen, the United Nations documented large numbers of children killed and maimed, mainly through ground operations, airstrikes and crossfire between parties to conflict. The Special Representative is especially concerned about the use of airstrikes by Governments and international coalitions, leading to the indiscriminate killing and maiming of children. In South Sudan, in the first half of 2018, fighting continued at elevated levels between government armed forces and armed groups, with ensuing high levels of grave violations committed by all parties to the conflict, the most prevalent being the recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, and rape and other forms of sexual violence. In Israel and the State of Palestine, the spike in violations against children following protests in the first half of 2018 is deeply worrying. 4. In the Syrian Arab Republic, while reports of the recruitment and use of children by some armed groups, such as Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), decreased in 2018, largely in the context of a reduction in the territory under their control, the overall number of verified cases of recruitment and use remained high. It was reported that children frequently switched association after a new armed group gained control of an area. In Colombia, despite the decline in conflict intensity and the disarmament of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) and their transformation into a political party, the presence of non-State armed groups, such as FARC-EP dissident groups, the Ejército de Liberación Nacional and post-demobilization groups, continued to pose a protection risk for children, leading to a renewed spike in killing and maiming and recruitment and use in 2018. 5. Attacks on schools, including the recruitment and abduction of children from schools, and the military use of schools have significantly increased during the reporting period, with a devastating effect on the right to education of the affected children. In South Sudan, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was listed for attacks on schools and hospitals in 2018, owing to a continuing trend of such attacks, combined with a spike in 3