Children living in fear due to threat of war

The US and Russia have agreed to remain committed to the nuclear deal that limits the number of nuclear warheads either side will hold in their stockpiles.

Both sides have said that as long as the other remains committed, then no further nuclear weapons will be made or bought. But it seems difficult to trust anyone who has the power to wipe out entire cities with the press of a button, or even the ability to consider it.

It is even more difficult to develop and maintain that trust when the targets include millions of children.

If you grew up in the UK in the 1970s and ‘80s, you will probably remember the public information film laughably known as “Protect and Survive.” The video explained how people should find shelter in the safest room in their home and stay there until the all-clear was sounded. Households were told to build shelters using either boards or doors leaned at an angle against a wall, and to then reinforce this with bricks and to have a store of tinned food and clean water to drink.

Children should be able to trust adults; children should be allowed to be innocent and vulnerable

Peter Harrison

The idea was that you would have taken the decision to build this shelter and stockpile food in anticipation of a nuclear attack and then, when the sirens sounded, you and your family would climb in with at least two weeks’ worth of food and at least 200 liters of water — and wait.

What the public information film did not tell people was that modern nuclear warheads were and remain far more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

If a nuclear attack happened then or now, entire neighborhoods would be razed in a moment. All organic life forms, including humans, would be vaporized instantly — that lean-to shelter would most probably be replaced by scorched earth.

The British government did not and still does not have a plan to protect the public. As the information film implied, you were on your own. And in the unlikely event that you survived the blast, by lying face down in a ditch or sitting under a footbridge, you would probably die an agonizing death from the sickness brought on by the nuclear fallout.

The suffering of children globally is denying generations the right to a life of opportunity and excitement

Peter Harrison

The threat of warfare continues to affect people’s lives all around the world, with children denied the most basic right to live without fear of violence and their parents denied the right to enjoy their children’s happiness.

In fact, the numbers are getting worse.

In September 2025, the UN issued its report on children’s rights with the simple headline: “Even in times of conflict, children’s rights are not optional.”

According to the report, “473 million children were affected by armed conflict globally in 2024, approximately one in six children, according to estimates by the NGO Save the Children.”

This number recorded in 2024-25 was the highest increase reported and 2025-26 is showing no signs of being any better.

One child in the Save the Children report was quoted as saying: “Children have no reason to know about wars, about deaths; it is unfair for us. We are children who are just living, and it seems to me an injustice that also our lives are taken at such a young age.”

UN data reports that the most common violations of children’s rights are the killing and maiming of children, followed by the denial of humanitarian access, sexual violence and attacks on schools and hospitals.

About 40 percent of the 132 million people forcibly displaced by conflict and violence worldwide are children, the report added.

Children should be able to trust adults; children should be allowed to be innocent and vulnerable. They should not know what their sibling looks like after being caught in crossfire or the blast of a missile fired by someone the same age as their parents.

But while the suffering experienced by children in war zones such as Gaza and Sudan is very real and the long-term consequences debilitating, the effect of the threat of a nuclear war should not be played down.

In the 1980s, the US National Institutes of Health published a report addressing the psychological impact that the threat of global nuclear war had on children. The most common symptoms included chronic anxiety and fear, as well as an increase in behavioral changes, including increased aggression and profound apathy.

The suffering of children globally is denying generations the right to a life of opportunity and excitement. In recent months and years, world leaders have made frequent threats of war, with some even warning of wiping out entire nations.

Children should be able to trust so-called grown-ups to run the world, not send them to the front line or annihilate all that is important to them.

They should live full lives and allow their parents to watch on as they grow old.

Parents should be able to reassure their offspring that they are safe and mean it.

• Peter Harrison is a senior editor at Arab News in the Dubai office. He has covered the Middle East for more than 15 years. X: @PhotoPJHarrison