As the United Nations Security Council prepares for Protection of Civilians Week 2025 on May 19-23, when many stakeholders gather to advance ways to protect civilians in armed conflict, UN member states should ensure that people with disabilities are included in efforts to strengthen protection and uphold international humanitarian law and human rights law.
Human Rights Watch’s investigations over the past decade into the impact of armed conflict on people with disabilities have shown that they face disproportionate risks during fighting, and are more likely to experience forced displacement, starvation, and lack of access to aid. During the hostilities in Gaza and elsewhere, children with disabilities have faced particular harms due to both their age and disability, including higher risk of death and injury.
On December 6, 2024, the Security Council organized its first informal meeting in five years on the protection of people with disabilities in armed conflict. Member states and civil society groups acknowledged the lack of progress on implementing Security Council Resolution 2475, which urges warring parties to take measures to protect people with disabilities and ensure they have access to justice, basic services, and humanitarian assistance. Member states overwhelmingly recommitted to implement the resolution and to mainstream disability across the council’s work.
The Security Council now has an opportunity to turn those commitments into action. It should permanently include the situation of people with disabilities in armed conflicts and humanitarian emergencies on its agenda. It should invite people with disabilities to serve as briefers and consult regularly with them. Resolution 2475 urged member states to provide people with disabilities a seat at the table.
I have spent 19 months documenting the harms faced by children and adults with disabilities in Gaza, including from the Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon of war and its denial of access to health care through its sustained assault on medical facilities. I have seen firsthand the devastating consequences of failing to include people with disabilities in humanitarian responses. Similar harms have been documented in other recent armed conflicts, including Syria, where people with disabilities have been routinely overlooked in protection efforts and denied access to aid and essential services.
Ensuring that people with disabilities are a central focus of the Security Council would demonstrate the council’s genuine commitment, not only to Resolution 2475 and the rights of people with disabilities, but to the protection of all civilians in armed conflict.
