118. Reiterates its request for the Commission to propose a comprehensive Child Rights Strategy and Action Plan for the next five years, in order to prioritise children’s rights within EU external policies, supporting the EU’s efforts to promote their rights, in particular by contributing to ensuring children’s access to water, sanitation, healthcare and education, by ensuring the rehabilitation and reintegration of children enlisted in armed groups, by eliminating child labour ...[+++], torture, the issue of child witchcraft, trafficking, child marriage and sexual exploitation, and by assisting children in armed conflicts and ensuring their access to education in conflict zones and refugee camps; calls on the VP/HR to report annually to Parliament on the results achieved with regard to child-focused EU external actions; commends the ‘Children No Soldiers’ campaign, and calls for the EU and the Member States to step up their support in order to reach the target of ending the recruitment and use of children in conflicts by government armed forces by 2016;

118. Reiterates its request for the Commission to propose a comprehensive Child Rights Strategy and Action Plan for the next five years, in order to prioritise children’s rights within EU external policies, supporting the EU’s efforts to promote their rights, in particular by contributing to ensuring children’s access to water, sanitation, healthcare and education, by ensuring the rehabilitation and reintegration of children enlisted in armed groups, by eliminating child labour ...[+++], torture, the issue of child witchcraft, trafficking, child marriage and sexual exploitation, and by assisting children in armed conflicts and ensuring their access to education in conflict zones and refugee camps; calls on the VP/HR to report annually to Parliament on the results achieved with regard to child-focused EU external actions; commends the ‘Children No Soldiers’ campaign, and calls for the EU and the Member States to step up their support in order to reach the target of ending the recruitment and use of children in conflicts by government armed forces by 2016;

117. Reiterates its request for the Commission to propose a comprehensive Child Rights Strategy and Action Plan for the next five years, in order to prioritise children's rights within EU external policies, supporting the EU’s efforts to promote their rights, in particular by contributing to ensuring children’s access to water, sanitation, healthcare and education, by ensuring the rehabilitation and reintegration of children enlisted in armed groups, by eliminating child labour ...[+++], torture, the issue of child witchcraft, trafficking, child marriage and sexual exploitation, and by assisting children in armed conflicts and ensuring their access to education in conflict zones and refugee camps; calls on the VP/HR to report annually to Parliament on the results achieved with regard to child-focused EU external actions; commends the ‘Children No Soldiers’ campaign, and calls for the EU and the Member States to step up their support in order to reach the target of ending the recruitment and use of children in conflicts by government armed forces by 2016;

encourage the signing of action plans for the protection of children in armed conflict with the UN Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict by concerned states and armed non-state actors, while recalling that such engagement with armed non-state actors does not imply support for, or recognition of the legitimacy of, these groups or their activities;

13. Abhors the grave violations and brutal acts of violence perpetrated against children in Mali, including the well-documented recruitment and use of child soldiers by nearly all of the armed groups active in the north, including government forces; emphasises the importance of allocating sufficient resources to the tasks of demobilisation and rehabilitation of child soldiers; welcomes, to this end, the draft agreement being drawn up between the Malian Government and the UN enabling child soldiers involved in the armed groups to be handed over to UN representatives, and applauds the actions of UNICEF to reintegrate these children; expresses deep concern at the findings of the latest UN report on children and armed ...[+++]conflict, which underlines how the character and tactics of the conflict in Mali have created unprecedented threats to children; condemns in the strongest terms the killing and maiming of children, rape and sexual violence, forced marriages, abductions, attacks on schools and hospitals, and restrictions on girls’ access to education, that have occurred during the Mali conflict; notes that a majority of schools in the north have not yet reopened, and urges for immediate action to enable them to do so; draws attention to the cases of abandonment of children born as a result of rape crimes in northern Mali as a worrying trend for which a solution needs to be found urgently; expresses deep concern, furthermore, at reports of children being detained along with adults and undergoing interrogation without due protection; welcomes, in this connection, the UN Security Council’s aim to provide specific protection for women and children affected by armed conflict;

The EU and its countries aim to take account of and to coordinate their actions with other bodies, such as the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict, in order to maximise their impact.