Thousands of children killed, wounded and abused

By Fr. Shay Cullen

The latest United Nations report on the thousands of children killed, maimed, violated and abused in conflict areas worldwide was released last week. If we don’t tell the truth about these violations and act on them, these serious crimes will continue to be committed and go unpunished. As Jesus of Nazareth once said, “the truth will set you free.” Indeed, we need to be freed from the denial and cover-up of these crimes, which the UN report says is being committed every day.

Among all of creation, it is only us humans, endowed with intelligence and knowledge, who abuse and violate children, or allow this to happen. This is due to shame, apathy, lack of compassion, and the reluctance of authorities to enforce the rule of law to protect abused children. All this despite — or, perhaps, because of — the widening spread of knowledge through modern communication.

Despite the progress in human development and education in the past 50 years, the UN report says a record number of children endured violence in armed conflict in 2025, and it is increasing today as more of them are killed in Palestine and Lebanon daily.

Verified UN information records show that 38,558 grave violations were committed against children last year alone. “A total of 24,174 children were directly affected and their rights violated, with 3,176 of them subjected to multiple violations, including killing and maiming, recruitment and sexual abuse, abduction, rape and other forms of sexual violence, attacks on schools and hospitals, and the denial of humanitarian access. A third of the victims were girls. Children are stripped bare of their rights, safety, and dignity to which every child is entitled,” the report says.

In addition, more than 50,000 children were killed or injured in the Gaza Strip alone, while hundreds more were killed and thousands wounded across the West Bank and Lebanon by Israel’s military and its bombardments in recent years. UN agencies like the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the World Health Organization say virtually all children in these conflict zones — over 1.5 million minors — have suffered severe and long-lasting psychological trauma.

In the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli bombings yielded the highest volume of total abuses by a massive margin. Some 12,445 violations have been recorded, with Israeli armed forces responsible for 9,465 of these. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports, as verified by UN agencies, that over 21,000 children have been killed. This includes more than 1,000 who were not yet a year old. Thousands more remain missing and are presumed dead under the rubble. More than 42,000 children have been injured. The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reported that at least 21,000 children were left with permanent disabilities; as much as 4,000 of them had their limbs amputated.

Utter disregard

All this occurred with utter disregard for international law and violating the special protection afforded to children. The highest levels of violations against children in 2025 were in the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, Myanmar and Somalia.  The wanton killing of 6,266 children and maiming of 7,958 others in these countries are verified violations of their right to life. There has been a shocking 34 percent increase in the killing of children compared to those in 2024.

Multiple high-ranking Israeli government officials, including ministers and lawmakers, have made public statements that human rights organizations, UN experts, and South Africa’s legal team at the International Court of Justice have cited as dehumanizing to Palestinians. The Israeli statements are advocating for the elimination, displacement or collective punishment of all Palestinians.

This dehumanization of Palestinians has led to barbaric killings of women and children in Israeli airstrikes and drone attacks that have destroyed countless homes. United States President Donald Trump has deplored such strikes while he continues to supply Israel with weapons that allow them to perpetrate mass destruction.

The statements from Israeli ministers are particularly shocking. For example, Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset, said in a February 2025 interview with Kol BaRama radio that Palestinians were “scoundrels” and “subhumans,” adding: “We need to separate the children and women and kill the adults in Gaza.” He also said, and erroneously so, that Gaza’s entire population was complicit in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel. Late that year, he called for the erasure of “the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth” in a social media post.

Another official, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, called on the Israeli government to starve the people in Gaza. In May 2025, he called on the government to “bomb the food stores in Gaza” and for forced deportation of Gazans by starving them. He said, “the only aid that should enter Gaza is for the purpose of voluntary migration.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in August 2024 it might be “justified and moral” to starve 2 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza to force the release of Israeli hostages. He caused international outrage when he said there was “no such thing as a Palestinian people.”

Violent discipline

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, the Philippine Social Science Council, primarily through the newly formed Philippine Children Research Network (PCRN), consolidates data from bodies like Unicef and the government to address child rights violations. According to their records, as much as 80 percent of Filipino children experience some form of physical, psychological, sexual, or online violence in their lifetime, and that more than 23 million children younger than age 14 — roughly 60 percent in that age bracket — suffer from violent discipline within their own homes. The Philippine Commission on Human Rights says there is an epidemic of online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, with 2 million internet-using children aged 12 to 17 subjected to this.

Because many violations of this nature go unreported due to fear and stigma, cover-up and denial by family members, official government tracking captures only a fraction of this abuse and exploitation. According to recent data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, the Department of Social Welfare and Development handled 2,864 documented cases of child abuse — 1,967 girls and 897 boys — in a single year cycle, with the majority of these involving severe sexual abuse, neglect and child labor trafficking.

The good news is that early this June, the Regional Trial Court Branch 61 in Angeles City, Pampanga, headed by Judge April Joy B. Magsayo-Aguila, sentenced a child sex offender to between 12 and 31 years in prison for sexually assaulting his 11-year-old granddaughter, whom we shall call Nancy. In a dramatic turn of events during the hearing, when Nancy’s mother was about to testify, the defense lawyer intervened and announced that the accused had changed his plea from not guilty to guilty. Nancy won after bravely fighting for justice during her stay at the Preda Foundation’s children’s home. A victory for justice and the courage of Nancy.