Historically, in Europe, children’s rights first focused on work, when the industrial revolution pushed their exploitation to a paroxysm. It expanded to education and intra-family relations at the end of the 19th century. It was only after the shock of the Great War that child protection was thought of in a way that was both holistic and international. At the same time, however, a century of wars began in which children were increasingly exposed.
“ Hereby Declaration of the Rights of the Childknown as the Geneva Declaration, men and women of all nations recognize that humanity must give the child the best it has, affirming their duties, apart from any consideration of race, nationality, belief. » In the preamble of this 1924 text, quoted here in full, is laid down, in a much too generic and succinct manner, the basis of an awareness which, since then, has continued to grow, on the specific rights devolved to childhood.
During the Great War, civilian losses were overall slightly higher than those suffered by the military. But the disparities are great between countries that are largely or entirely occupied like Belgium or the Kingdom of Serbia, others that have partially become territories of war, like France or Italy, and finally others for whom the war is taking place in outside the borders, such as the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany.
Children, the first victims of genocides
Furthermore, a third of civilian victims – all nations combined – are nationals of the Ottoman Empire and, among them, an overwhelming majority were murdered during the Armenian genocide. As Manon Pignot and Anne Tourniéroux recall in the catalog of the exhibition “Children at war, war on childhood? » :« The crime of genocide […] is based on an intentionality of extermination […] which is particularly aimed at children. »
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The Second World War killed at least twice as many civilians as soldiers, the ratio ranging from one to twenty in the case of Poland, again mainly due to a genocide, the Shoah. The trend is confirmed throughout the century, in an astonishing paradox: even though the international community affirms the rights of children, never have so many civilians, and among them many children, been victims of war. .
For Manon Pignot, a historian specializing in childhood and adolescence at war, there are multiple explanations: “ Classic conflicts distinguished a front and a rear. Today’s wars strike at a distance, also with a desire to affect civilians. » In a world where children have become valuable both individually and collectively – even more so in Western countries where demographics are at half mast – they are more or less openly becoming a priority target.
Hitting children to sow terror
“ If theSocial networks are a way of documenting war crimes, they are also used to spread terror », recalls Manon Pignot, in particular regarding the intentional circulation of images showing the abuses of the Russian army in Ukraine. “ We are witnessing violations of all the rules of warshe continues. Bringing children hostages, like Hamas did it, it was unprecedented for Israeli society. The hostages until then were soldiers. This fdeliberate ranching has For purpose of terrorize a society. »
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The response was to strike wherever the terrorists could be found, even if it meant killing a much larger number of Palestinian civilians, including more than 14,000 children (1) with, concerning them, a much higher threshold of tolerance from the community. international. “ We see a form of identification to certain categories of child victims and not to others, remarks Manon Pignot. In the eyes of the West, are certain lives goingwould more than others? We have to ask ourselves the question. If it is true that tEvery society plunged into war modifies its system of values, cIt is the function of non-belligerent States to recall fundamental rights. »
Since the war returned to European soil, in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the media began to distinguish not only civilian victims from soldiers killed in combat, but also children. A few years earlier, in 1989, the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the UN, reaffirming the notion of “ best interests of the child », already posed by the new version of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child from 1959.
Will progress in children’s rights one day be translated into action?
This decade, which is that of the genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, is among the deadliest of the 20th century. She also saw the issue of child soldiers emerge, leading the UN to amend its text of additional protocols. In the West, it is still during this period that we witness, recalls Manon Pignot, “ an acculturation of child psychology and child psychiatry, which emerged in the 1930s “.
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Over the last twenty years, historical research has made considerable progress on the question of childhood in war territory, both in the exploitation of new sources such as drawings, and in the study of daily life or adaptation of imaginations. “ Childhood stops at the gates of the campexplains Manon Pignot on this subject, one of the reasons which allows us to see this is that there is no longer any play. »
As for the distortion between an increased sensitivity of major institutions for children and the reality of the conflicts which are increasingly affecting them, “ LOptimism is to say that the impregnation in mentalities will eventually take place », she concludes.
(1) Unicef figure from October 24, 2024 for the Gaza Strip alone, to which must be added 35,000 injured children and several thousand missing.
► To read: Manon Pignot and Anne Tournieroux (under the direction of), Children at war, war on childhood? From 1914 to the presentAnnamosa, 2024.
► To see: Exhibition: Manon Pignot, Anne Tournieroux (exhibition curators) “Children at war, war on childhood? From 1914 to the present day »La Contemporaine (from November 20, 2024 to March 15, 2025).
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