Special Envoy of the Secretary General on the situation of children of Ukraine, Thórdís Kolbrún Reykfjord Gylfadóttir, participated in a discussion on the topic “Modern Warfare: Rethinking Security Architecture Beyond Conventional Threats" during the Doha Forum that took place on 6-7 December 2025.
Abducting Ukrainian children to brainwash, indoctrinate them, and send them to the front lines where they are then supposed to fight their own countrymen, is “absolutely a tool of war”, she said. “You don't have to be a lawyer or a geopolitical expert to understand this, you just have to be a father or a mother, or to remember when you were a child and you needed your parents”, Thordis Gylfadottir argued. “You basically just have to be a human being to understand how fundamentally wrong it is to steal other people's children and the effect that it has on a society.”
The Special Envoy had a number of bilateral meetings, including with Vanessa Frazier (Malta) UN Secretary General Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. During the meeting, opportunities for synergies between the Council of Europe and the United Nations were discussed.
