"Information on Armenia employing child soldiers in the area of ongoing armed hostilities and using kindergartens and school buildings for military purposes in grave violation of international humanitarian law, has been published as UN General Assembly and UN Security Council documents", head of press service of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Leyla Abdullayeva wrote on Twitter, APA reports.
The Letter dated 27 October 2020 from the Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary - General reads:
"Further to our previous communications in connection with yet another act of aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan, I would like to draw your attention to the information that has recently been published and widely disseminated in social media, demonstrating that Armenia employs child soldiers in the area of ongoing armed hostilities and uses kindergartens and school buildings for military purposes, in grave violation of the rights of children and international humanitarian law .
In that regard, I have the honor to enclose information of the Press Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan ( see annex ) and should be grateful if you would have the present letter and its annex circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 35, 40, 68 and 86, and of the Security Council.
Information of the Press Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan 27 October 2020
The recent videos widely spread on social media demonstrates that Armenia employs children as soldiers in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
It is almost three decades that hundreds of thousands of children in the Republic of Azerbaijan suffer from the ongoing aggression of Armenia and its long-lasting effects. However, it is evident that Armenia not only continues to violate the rights of Azerbaijani children but also does not hesitate to violate the rights of Armenian children.
By using children in military operations, Armenia violates the protection guaranteed for children by the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war and Additional Protocol I thereto, which provides that "children shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault".
By such actions, Armenia vigorously violates the child rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, in particular its Articles 1 and 2.
While using children as combatants. Armenia deprives the children of their fundamental rights, in particular the right to life and the right to protection, as children might become military targets as combatants.
Moreover, Armenia, which presents itself as one of the "advocates" of the Safe Schools Declaration, does not hesitate to use school buildings for military purposes which is another demonstration of its failure to respect the protection of future generations.
We firmly condemn the violation of the rights of children by Armenia, in blatant ignorance of international conventions and its commitments under international humanitarian law, and call the related international organizations to thoroughly investigate these illegal practices and take necessary measures to stop the breach of the rights of children by Armenia."
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