This is with reference to the report “Ex-British PM calls for ‘new deal’ for kids in conflict.” (Dec. 18.) I appreciate Gordon Brown, the former British prime minister, drawing our attention to a pressing, but perennial, problem of those children who are caught in the crossfire of war.
The problem is that we often wait for such a situation to emerge before swinging into any action. Today we are rightly concerned about the children in Aleppo, but perhaps have no contingency plan to deal with the tension that is simmering in Idlib, and which will create another crisis for many more children.
Brown is the UN’s special envoy for global education under outgoing Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and who wants the European Court of Human Rights to prosecute the perpetrators of school bombings.
As the world seems to be run mostly by thugs and criminals, such questions — howsoever important — appear to be absurd.
If such a mechanism could be created whereby perpetrators of humanitarian crimes are brought to justice, then many top leaders — from George Bush Sr. to Bush Jr., and from Tony Blair to Vladimir Putin — will be seen standing in the dock, finding it hard to answer about their numerous crimes in the world.
I agree with Brown that it is really “more dangerous to be a child on the streets than a soldier on the front line.”
The world in disorder
