Topic: Protecting Humanitarian Workers in Conflict Zones
Country: Czech Republic
Delegate Name: Lindsey Kinderdine
School: Mattawan High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Czech Republic position papers GLIMUN 2011 committees
Assistance from humanitarian workers is deemed necessary for nations deteriorating due to political crises and natural disasters in order to lessen, if not abate the human struggles. Recently, the respect for these workers and their legally protected status has fallen and the workers have become victims of the attacks themselves. Workers have been injured, kidnapped, and even murdered. Generally, such attacks occur in conflict zones and often are motivated by desperation of citizens or for political reasons. The goal of the assailants is most often to lash a harsh blow to the aid organization.
The most recent result of attacks on the aid organizations have resulted in the decline of numbers of people working for each effort, and so small groups are hosting more small programs to aid the afflicted citizens. Due to this decentralization of the aid efforts, it has been reported that the numbers of attacks is proportional to the size of the group attending to each small area. Because of the decrease in potential victims at events sponsored by the aid organizations, it inclines the Czech Republic to believe that politically motivated groups will be less impelled to attack. However, humanity feels strength in numbers, so the humanitarian aid programs will feel less compelled to send small groups of people trained in, not defense, but medicine or food distribution into dangerous territories alone. Due to this phenomena, the UN needs to intervene and provide a solution for these dilemmas before the violence dissolves all effort of aid supplementation in struggling nations.
Humanitarian workers are well aware of the risks of entering a war-zone to provide aid to the victims of these conflicts. As of late, however, the risks of workers entering such areas where their work is needed most has highly increased by the planned attacks of both politically motivated groups or the desperate citizens afflicted with the devastating effects of the conflict zone or natural disaster. The workers have no form of protection against such violence through the UN’s legislation, and, thus, often are highly vulnerable targets. The Czech Republic agrees that a resolution is necessary to protect these workers from the excessive and unnecessary violence directed at them.
