A/HRC/21/38 I. Introduction 1. The present report, covering the period from May 2011 to May 2012, is submitted pursuant to General Assembly resolution 51/77 and other subsequent resolutions of the Assembly on the rights of the child, including its most recent resolution 66/141, in which the Assembly requested the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict to continue to submit a report to the Human Rights Council on the activities undertaken in the fulfilment of her mandate, including information on her field visits and on the progress achieved and the challenges remaining on the children and armed conflict agenda. 2. Armed conflict not only leads to violations of children’s human rights, but also deprives them of their basic socioeconomic rights. Conflict-affected countries and fragile States continue to lag behind in education and child mortality indicators, and the realization of other Millennium Development Goals. Children are disproportionately affected by this situation. Of the primary-school-age children in the world who are not enrolled in school, as many as two thirds live in such countries. In these contexts, children often voluntarily join armed forces and groups for lack of other options. Furthermore, thousands of children continue to be killed, maimed, abducted, subjected to sexual violence, denied humanitarian access and deprived of health care in many countries. Children were also subjected to arbitrary arrests, detention, torture and ill-treatment, and used as suicide bombers and human shields in several countries during the reporting period. 3. The need to address impunity and bring to justice those most responsible for violations of children’s rights in situations of armed conflict continues to be a central concern of the Office of the Special Representative. Since the Special Representative’s previous report (A/HRC/18/38), significant progress has been made in efforts to end impunity for perpetrators of grave violations against children, as illustrated by the first judgement of the International Criminal Court on the war crime of recruitment and use of children. Progress has also continued with regard to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which has been ratified by 147 countries. Impunity remains widespread, however, and holding persistent perpetrators to account must be an utmost priority for the international community. The Human Rights Council is also a leading partner in ensuring that States apply the international norms and standards that protect children’s rights. 4. The Special Representative welcomes the adoption by the Human Rights Council of its resolution 18/12 on human rights in the administration of justice, in particular juvenile justice. She especially appreciates the call on States to develop and implement a comprehensive juvenile justice policy with a view to promoting the use of alternative measures, such as diversion and restorative justice. She wishes to stress the need to ensure that, if children associated with armed forces and groups are arrested, detained or imprisoned, they should be separated from adults, to the greatest extent feasible. She also stresses the importance of including rehabilitation and reintegration strategies for child perpetrators in juvenile justice policies with a view to their assuming a constructive role in society. Lastly, she wishes to highlight the importance of tackling the specific issue of juvenile justice for children affected by armed conflict, in particular those children formerly or allegedly associated with armed groups. 5. The Special Representative also appreciates the adoption of resolution 19/37 on the rights of the child, in which the Council condemned in the strongest terms all violations committed against children in armed conflict and urged all parties to end such violations and to seek to end impunity for perpetrators. She welcomes the call upon States to endorse the Paris Commitments to protect children from recruitment or use by armed forces or 4