Dear CHIFA members
Please see the following recommendations from a paper just published<https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/8/1/e002407?rss=1> in the BMJ Paediatric Open -
Gaza, armed conflict and child health<https://bmjpaedsopen.bmj.com/content/8/1/e002407?rss=1>
Actions for the child health community:
1. Call for the formal implementation of the United Nations Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism to hold parties accountable for committing grave violations against children.
2. Demand objective, needs-based humanitarian aid for children in all conflicts, regardless of scale, political or strategic importance.
3. Continue to highlight evidence of the egregious impact of war on children through formal (eg, publication, news media) and informal channels (eg, social-media), especially where coordinated, collective actions are possible or where the voices of advocacy, human rights and humanitarian organisations can be amplified.
4. Join or develop a coalition of child health advocates in your country or region to work specifically on protecting child health in conflict.
5. Stand in solidarity with affected children and young people by joining peace and humanitarian organisations working towards preventing and ending conflict.
6. Stand in solidarity with health workers in Gaza who are facing intolerable circumstances and enormous workloads.
7. Push to embed data on the adverse effects of conflict on child health into policy recommendations and for use in the international legal system to hold responsible parties to account.
Please disseminate this paper widely as the implications for children are of great importance to all of us and we need to speak out.
Tony Waterston
CHIFA profile: Tony Waterston is a retired consultant paediatrician who worked mainly in the community in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. He spent 6 years working in Zambia and Zimbabwe and directed the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health Diploma in Palestinian Child Health teaching programme in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was an Editor of the Journal of Tropical Pediatrics and is on the Executive Committee of the International Society for Social Pediatrics. His academic interests are child poverty, advocacy for child health and children's rights. He is currently the lead moderator of CHIFA (HIFA's sister forum on child health and rights). www.chifa.org He is also a member of the HIFA Steering Group.
www.hifa.org/people/steering-group
www.hifa.org/support/members/tony
Tony.Waterston AT newcastle.ac.uk
