Reintegration of Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups: Wilton Park event report

The Wilton Park event on ‘Reintegration of Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups’ addressed a core recommendation from the April 2022 Wilton Park event ‘Preparing the children and armed conflict agenda for the future’. Besides being a critical issue on the global peace, security, and development agendas, recruitment and use of children by armed forces or armed groups continues to seriously impact children’s rights and protection in situations of armed conflict. Release and provision of adequate reintegration support for affected children is a critical response to this problem.

The event brought together representatives from governments, UN agencies, civil society organisations, legal, counter-terrorism, juvenile justice and child rights advisors as well as academics to discuss how actors can better cooperate to address existing gaps and needs to achieve successful reintegration of Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (CAAFAG) while also taking a preventive approach.