We welcome Gordon Brown’s powerful focus on the traumatic effects of war on children in Iran (Children killed, a school turned into a graveyard: even in wartime, we can’t accept this, 12 March). In our work with child psychologists in Ukraine, Gaza and other conflict zones, we have seen how wars blight the lives not only of children who are injured but also of those who lose their homes, families and communities.
Disrupted schooling, displacement to other countries, bereavement in their peer group and family, witnessing the horrors of conflict and feeling the terrors of air raids or ground attacks – all of these catastrophic experiences can lead to lifelong psychological disturbance.
In this context, we would urge the international community not only to strengthen legal protections for children in war zones, but also to increase support for life-changing trauma treatments, which we have found in Ukraine can help up to 92% of traumatised children to recover their mental health.
Dr Maria Callias
Chair, Children and War UK
It shouldn’t be controversial to be against the targeting of children and teachers. It shouldn’t be controversial to stand against child slavery in war and conflict. And it certainly shouldn’t be controversial to use our voices to speak out against mass murder of children. Gordon Brown raises moral, political and legal standpoints in this well-written, factual article. I believe, as citizens, that it is our duty to engage in our democracy, as one of the British values, to raise this problem to MPs, councillors, metropolitan mayors and council leaders so that children are never blown up in their own classroom again.
Mackenzie Smallman
Manchester
I couldn’t agree more with Gordon Brown. No child should ever become collateral damage. Attacks on education buildings – and one assumes on schoolchildren – are war crimes. In September 2025, Save the Children stated that at least 20,000 children in Gaza had been killed in 23 months – on average one Palestinian child an hour. I have never heard this government call out Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government for war crimes, or indeed for genocide. Shame on them.
Ann Kramer
Hastings, East Sussex
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