A/HRC/4/30 page 16 Sometimes we would go on an empty stomach for days. We had not food and were eating only wild leaves and wild fruit … Sometimes we had one handful of beans for 10 people. Hunger kills many children, including the children of the commanders.39 44. The Special Rapporteur is impressed by recent efforts of the international community, NGOs from Sweden, the United States of America and Norway, to focus on the elimination of recruitment of children and armed conflicts. In 2005, the Security Council adopted a far-reaching resolution on conflict-affected children, calling for compliance with protection standards and norms and creating a Working Group with the aim of monitoring such compliance (see Council resolution 1612 (2005)). On the ground, collaboration between United Nations agencies, particularly UNICEF, Governments, regional organizations, NGOs and civil society has produced significant progress, including raising global awareness, strengthening the international human rights system so as to enhance protection for children’s rights and integrating this issue within the United Nations (A/61/275). The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for five senior members of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and the founder and leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots in the Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for forcibly enlisting and using children under the age of 15 in conflicts. 45. The international legislative framework to protect children from the impact of armed conflicts has also been considerably strengthened with the entry into force in 2000 of International Labour Organization Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999, which stipulates that States must take immediate action to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labour, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict, and by the entry into force in 2002 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. These developments reflect significant advances in the efforts to eliminate child recruitment. However, the Special Rapporteur is concerned that these efforts are not always focusing on the root causes of child recruitment, which are hunger and lack of schooling. 46. There is an urgent need to recognize the link between hunger and food insecurity, and child recruitment into armed conflict. Concrete measures must be taken by Governments and the international community to respect, protect and fulfil children’s right to food in order to remove the root causes of conflict and child recruitment. During conflict situations, if security permits, there must be a focus on ensuring adequate food and nutrition of all children, including through promoting measures such as universal school meals to keep children in school or food for vocational training programmes for adolescents. Special programmes must address the basic needs for food and safe drinking water for the 140 million children under age 12 who have no regular access to school. However, eradicating hunger and ensuring adequate access of all people to productive resources will be the key to eradicating child recruitment into armed conflict. 39 Ibid.