Protecting Children Requires More Than Promises

By Sabrina Odia

August 12, 2026

When children are caught in armed conflict, the question should never simply be who is to blame? The harder and more important question is; “Where are children falling through the cracks, and what can we actually do to protect them?”

International law provides an essential framework for protecting children during conflict. Treaties, international standards, accountability mechanisms and institutions such as the United Nations exist for a reason. They give governments and the international community tools to prevent abuses, respond to violations and pursue accountability.

But having rules is not the same as implementing them.

A child does not experience international law as a treaty on paper. They experience it through whether their government has functioning institutions, whether schools and communities are protected, whether recruitment can be prevented, whether warning signs are recognised, whether victims can access support, and whether those responsible genuinely believe there will be consequences.

That is where the conversation needs to become more practical.

We should not approach international institutions as though they are either the answer to everything or the cause of every failure. Neither is true. International law and the United Nations can be powerful tools, but their effectiveness depends heavily on political will, state cooperation, resources, infrastructure and implementation.

If a government has ratified an important treaty but lacks the institutions necessary to enforce its obligations, the work cannot end with ratification.

If an international mechanism identifies a serious violation, but there is no meaningful national capacity to respond, identification alone cannot protect the next child.

And if children are being recruited or used by armed groups, we should be asking not only how accountability can be pursued afterwards, but what could have been done earlier to prevent that recruitment from happening in the first place. That means investing in prevention.

It means strengthening national child-protection systems. It means supporting education and community resilience. It means training institutions to identify and respond to risks. It means cooperation between governments, international organisations and civil society. It means making sure that international commitments are translated into policies, budgets, institutions and practices that work in the real world.

And when serious violations occur, accountability still matters.

But accountability should not be understood only as punishment after the fact. Meaningful accountability is also about creating systems in which violations are harder to commit, easier to detect and more likely to have consequences.

This is why I do not believe the answer is to simply point fingers at governments, international organisations or individual institutions. Criticism has its place. Accountability has its place. But if our ultimate objective is protecting children, then criticism should lead somewhere. It should lead to better cooperation.

Better implementation. Stronger institutions. Better prevention. And, when necessary, meaningful accountability.

The international community already has many of the legal tools it needs. The challenge is turning those commitments into protection that children can actually experience.

My work is not about pointing fingers. It is about identifying where children are falling through the cracks and asking what we can actually do to protect them. Because for a child living through conflict, a promise on paper is not enough.

Protection has to reach them in reality.

So what does a pathway forward actually look like?

It begins with turning existing commitments into functioning systems. Governments can strengthen national child-protection structures, translate international obligations into funded policies and clear procedures, and ensure that schools, communities and frontline institutions are equipped to identify and respond to risks before violations escalate.

Early-warning and reporting mechanisms should connect directly to people and institutions capable of acting on the information they receive. When national capacity is limited, international organisations should not simply identify the gap; they should work alongside states to strengthen the infrastructure needed to close it through technical assistance, training, coordination, monitoring and resources.

Civil society and organisations working directly with children can help ensure that these systems reflect what is actually happening on the ground and that vulnerable children are not lost between institutions. And when violations do occur, accountability mechanisms should connect with national justice and child-protection systems so that accountability is not isolated from prevention, rehabilitation and long-term protection.

This requires moving beyond separate responses and building a stronger bridge between them. Governments have the primary responsibility to protect children within their jurisdiction. International institutions can provide frameworks, expertise, coordination and support.

Civil society can help identify gaps, reach communities and strengthen accountability. The objective should not be to replace one with another, but to make the system work together, so that where one institution cannot reach, another can help bridge the gap.

This way, responsibility becomes meaningful accountability. We identify who has the responsibility to act, what capacity they have to act, where the gaps exist, and what is needed to close them. We build the infrastructure that connects commitments to implementation, institutions to communities, and accountability to prevention.

Because the goal cannot simply be to respond after a child has been harmed. The goal must be to build systems strong enough to reach that child before the harm occurs, and strong enough to remain there afterwards.

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