A/HRC/52/60 protecting the rights of children with disabilities in armed conflict. Her Office also provided input for the reports of special rapporteurs. 5. The Special Representative enhanced exchanges with United Nations mandated commissions of inquiry, fact-finding missions and investigations, and she met with the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar and the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan. 6. The Committee on the Rights of the Child continued to raise the situation of children affected by armed conflict during the reviews of States parties’ implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Office of the Special Representative continued to cooperate with the Committee in that regard and to work with the United Nations on the ground to support the implementation of recommendations pertaining to countries on the children and armed conflict agenda, including by providing input to the Committee’s country-specific concluding observations. Furthermore, in February 2022, the Office of the Special Representative made a submission towards the development of a new general comment by the Committee on children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change. In March 2022, the Office of the Special Representative and the Committee co-organized a high-level side event entitled “Ending and preventing child recruitment: the children and armed conflict mandate and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict”. In June and October 2022, the Special Representative met with the Chair of the Committee and, in September 2022, her Office briefed Committee members on the children and armed conflict mandate. 7. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) continued to be an important partner for the Special Representative, including through its field-level participation in the monitoring and reporting mechanism on children and armed conflict. The Office of the Special Representative also contributed to OHCHR reports on the rights of the child and family reunification2 and on the impact of arms transfers on human rights.3 The Special Representative’s Liaison Office in Brussels facilitated her engagement with the Geneva-based mechanisms and institutions. III. Challenges, trends and progress in ending and preventing grave violations A. Progress in ending and preventing grave violations 8. During the reporting period, thousands of children endured horrific conditions in conflict zones. Conflict escalation, the multiplication of armed actors, the use of mines, improvised explosive devices, explosive remnants of war and explosive weapons in populated areas, intensified humanitarian crises and violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law had a severe impact on the protection of children. Cross-border conflicts and intercommunal violence, in particular in the central Sahel and Lake Chad basin regions, affected children, while coups and takeovers aggravated their situation. The first nine months of 2022 were marked by a sustained high number of grave violations against children, which was further underscored by the decision of the SecretaryGeneral to add three new situations of concern in his latest report on children and armed conflict4 – namely in Ethiopia, Mozambique and Ukraine. Of the six grave violations against children in armed conflict, the highest number of verified cases were for recruitment and use of children, followed by killing and maiming and abduction. Attacks on schools and hospitals continued to increase and verified attacks were particularly high in Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar. While cases of sexual violence continued to be underreported, 2022 saw a sustained high number of verified incidents of sexual 2 3 4 GE.22-29080 A/HRC/49/31. A/HRC/51/15. A/76/871-S/2022/493. 3