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TechnoratiFor Tens of Thousands of Child Soldiers, A Short and Brutal Life
UNITED NATIONS - "Child soldiers are ideal because they don't complain, they don't expect to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill," a senior official in the National Army of Chad reportedly told a Human Rights Watch researcher.
On Tuesday, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers launched its third global report on this persistent problem. It paints a grim picture, and concludes that despite growing awareness of the situation, there has been little real improvement on the ground.
"The international consensus that the armed forces is not a place for children has strengthened, and yet the situation for children caught up in hostilities around the world has changed very little," said Dr. Victoria Forbes Adam, director of the coalition.
There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers worldwide, although the exact number is hard to verify.
Experts say that one major positive development in recent years has been the end of conflicts in countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia and Southern Sudan, where the use of child fighters was widespread. Overall, the number of conflicts in which children are directly involved fell from 27 in 2004 to 17 by the end of 2007, the report says.
And a "universal consensus" appears to be growing against the use of children in hostilities, with over three-quarters of U.N. member states having now signed, ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
However, the report stresses that the military recruitment of children under age 18 and their use in hostilities is a much larger phenomenon, which still takes place in one form or another in at least 86 countries and territories worldwide.
Where armed conflict does exist, the report warns, "child soldiers will almost certainly be involved. The majority of these children are in non-state armed groups, but the record of some governments is also little improved."
According to media reports this week, the Pakistani army claims to have swarmed an al Qaeda training camp in South Waziristan, where militants had transformed a government-run school into a site where boys aged 9 to 12 were taught how to conduct suicide attacks.
"Armed groups pose the greatest challenge," said Adam. "International laws have had limited impact in deterring child soldier use by armed groups. Many groups attach little value to international standards and the need to build fighting strength overrides other considerations. This reality must be confronted and new strategies developed."
The armed groups that use children as suicide bombers are "largely ignorant of or impervious to the norms of international laws and standards," she added. "They are resistant to pressure and persuasion and outside the reach of initiatives to end the involvement of children in armed conflict."
A U.N. report on "Children and Armed Conflict" said that the "name and shame" technique that has been proven effective in reforming governments has not worked when dealing with many armed groups.
How can these groups then be persuaded that it is wrong to use child soldiers? Jo Becker, advocacy director for the Children's Rights Division at Human Rights Watch and a founder of the coalition, told IPS very often children are lured into these groups because they romanticise the mission. The best way to fight this phenomenon is by keeping children in school or with their families and giving them alternatives.
Tens of thousands of children remain in the ranks of non-state armies in at least 24 different countries or territories. Constructive dialogue with these groups is almost impossible, as Adam noted.
As Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the U.N.secretary-general on children and armed conflict, told IPS in a previous interview, the U.N. can only have a dialogue with a group like the Taliban with the permission of the state. Currently, the government of President Hamid Karzai in Kabul discourages the U.N. or any other international organisation from any contacts with the Taliban.
The focus of international efforts must be on improving the overall social and economic conditions of children. Governments are part of the action and it is their responsibility to provide education. One other important strategy, is criminalizing recruitment so that there is an institutionalized, legal framework to protect the children.
As long as the climate of impunity prevails, there is little hope for improvement. Programmes on disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration (DDR) should focus on the release of children from the armed forces as well as reintegration of these children in society, experts say. Instead, this serious issue is being overlooked and sustained funding for the long-term support of former child soldiers is inadequate.
"Tens of thousands of children -- particularly girls -- are effectively rendered invisible during the demobilisation and reintegration process," said Adam. "It is not that their needs and vulnerabilities are unrecognised, it is simply a failure to apply lessons learned that is failing these children and their futures."
The Global Report covers the period from April 2004 to October 2007. It contains detailed information on military recruitment and use of child soldiers, release and reintegration initiatives and justice initiatives in 197 countries.
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was formed almost exactly 10 years ago this month. It includes leading humanitarian and human rights organisations from around the world like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Save the Children Alliance, Defence for Children International, International Federation Terre des Hommes and the Quaker U.N. Office.
© 2008 Inter Press Service
27 Comments so far
Show AllHeard ya the first time.
My youngest son looks to be about the same age as the boy that is pictured in this thread.
I had to stop and cry before I could red this post.
I"m happy to see that there are people here that are AWAKE.
The only way to stop this is through reeducation of generations.
I hope I 'll live to see it, but I think if I head my children in the right direction that really is all that a sane man could hope for.
I do not believe that Nature will (or can) forgive these crimes.
Sorry, I just think that this (redemption) is the stuff fed to tyrants to help them get to sleep.
Forgiveness is unnatural. That is why other creatures stay centered in the 'now' and do the best they can each and every moment.
A mistake is one thing, shirking responsibility though is not the same as making a mistake.
Life tolerates and encourages play, mistakes, explorations, but not conscious violations of fundamental principles...
It is natural to care and it is absolutely wrong to fail to act accordingly.
We either are a part of life, all life, are we are a part of non-life... however it expresses.
Indeed, anyone who saves a life, saves no life but his/her own... for in my view, we are one. This child is me, you, my child, our brother, sister... and any honest person looking into his eyes cannot deny this.
If we fail him, we fail ourselves. He is us and all we live for.
You sure?
Out here in status-symbol land our lives are also irredeemably corrupt. Who bears the real cost of a quality tee shirt on sale for three dollars?
I don't like the looks of that kid. I see my own sins.
No kidding, $8.50, incredible. Can you imagine half a million kids with them? It's bad enough with adults. They have these children kill people, prisoners, just so they can see how easy it is. They also force them to use mind altering drugs, so they have absoltely no fear or any other normal human emotions.
Romanticising the mission may be one way that armed groups corral children as frontline fighters but active kidnapping is also practiced by groups such as the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. The Tigers have repeatedly promised to release child combatants but continuously renege; now that the Sri Lankan government has cornered the Tigers militarily the desperate search to replace dead cadres has, in fact, made it much worse for Tamil children in Sri Lanka's north. Government soldiers talk of their horror at being confronted by children with Kalashnikovs. Some government soldiers are paralysed, unable to shoot at 15-year-olds. Child-recruiting armed groups like the Tamil Tigers need to be neutralized in order to protect the world's children. Progressives who waffle in their support for that goal are just naifs.
And where are our "right to Life"...pro-life people now?....
Praying for the rapture no doubt...
insane, human monkeys...oblivious to anything outside of self and immediate family, brainwashed and afraid to think for themselves, we are a sad creation
Those are excellent points guys.
Kids haven't learned to put on a macho face. When they are exhausted, terrified; when they have been through horrors that nobody should have to see, it shows.
How would you like to live next to that kid when he grows up?
Maybe it's unrealistic to expect this world to be Eden, but it doesn't have to be Lord of the Flies either. I smell the work of some neocons from the US of A in all this. They won't be satisfied until every poor person on the planet is mentally and physically maimed for life.
Children are children everywhere. This is awful.
And one can purchase a brand new Chinese made AK-47 assault rifle in Africa for ten bucks.
My God, children are children.
The folly and horror of war is but another conversation of the goings on by the sick side of humanity. And, the commodification of children to do the deadly, dirty work of powerful adults is the depth of perversion.
In the upcoming debate, I hope that arguments and viewpoints like these find
full expression, at every level. If they
do, I believe, Senator McCain will be utterly defeated thanks to his benighted
outlook. He turned against the best thing
he had going for him, his opposition to
torture. Light can defeat darkness, simple as that. But it won't happen if
people in all walks of life don't express
themselves, with frequency, just as powerfully as the posters have done here.
"The conflicts in which many child soldiers are involved are not wars meant to answer anything. They are about anarchy and greed, ethnicity and perceived power."
First and foremost, wars are about genocide and the role genocide has always played in maintaining, and extending the rule of empire.
Involving children is an ancient tradition and the recruiters/trainers are just getting better and better at dis-informing, traumatizing and ultimately desensitizing and conditioning children to unquestionably follow the orders of their 'superiors'.
What could be a greater symptom of the depth and totality of human insanity? Think we should revisit our cultural perspectives on an elite right to remote rule? Because that is where the problem begins (disassociation serving megalomania) and ultimately will end.
The conflicts in which many child soldiers are involved are not wars meant to answer anything. They are about anarchy and greed, ethnicity and perceived power. Few foot soldiers could explain why they are at war, and many of the children simply fight because they have been brainwashed, addicted to uppers, downers, adrenaline and the thrill of the kill. They are severely traumatized and dehumanized.
It makes me ponder. While our military recruiters hang around the high schools telling our kids what a swell time the will have in the military. Then I see the video games they get to play killing "terrorists". Can't get them started too young ya know.
"top-secret warrants to spy on American citizens suspected of having ties to terrorists. "
The 'government' is the terrorist as was proven on 9/11.
Of course, said 'government' is only a proxy for the super-elite who are the corporate/military power brokers.
War is never the answer, any time, anywhere, any place. WAR IS NEVER THE ANSWER!
This is the biggest problem in the world today. It encompasses all of the other problems. Teach your children to kill, and that it is easy to do. Peace Coup said it right.
Again, this is why war is not the answer.
Once engaged in war, child soldiers, cluster bombs, torture, mass detentions, etc... become justified because the only concern is "winning" the war.
We need to discredit the strategy of war and all of these problems will be discredited along with it.
I just finished showing the movie,"Blood Diamond" to a class of English students here in Vietnam where I teach for a Southeast Asian international organization. We will have a discussion about the movie in our next class as a part of their listening abilities of spoken English.
As Vietnam is still a closed society in many ways, it will be interesting to hear the student's comments on a movie where the use of children in conflict is so visible, as well as being a sub-plot of the film.
As anyone who has visited Vietnam knows, the Vietnamese are overwhelmingly a kind and gentle people, where the bonds of children and their parents are the strongest I have ever witnessed. Outside the family it is comman to see close friends - both boys and girls - walking along the street holding hands (mostly the girls) or with their arms over each other's shoulder or on the waist. This is particulary common among Grade School and High School Students, as well as college aged young men and women.
In this culture with the utmost respect for the elderly, it's going to be interesting to hear the student's reactions to the scenes of child soldiers mowing down everything living in a village before setting fire to all the huts.
"Tens of thousands of children remain in the ranks of non-state armies in at least 24 different countries or territories. Constructive dialogue with these groups is almost impossible, as Adam noted."
People need to start asking who is funding these groups (and training their leaders) and by what means they are obtaining weapons. This problem is analogous to the international drug trade. It will lead all the way up to the highest offices in Western society.
Recruiters in schools here in the states violates the law-most high schoolers are under eighteen years old.
"According to media reports this week, the Pakistani army claims to have swarmed an al Qaeda training camp in South Waziristan, where militants had transformed a government-run school into a site where boys aged 9 to 12 were taught how to conduct suicide attacks."
I hope everyone will note that Pakistani Intelligence was the CIA/MI6 partner in initially setting up Al Qaeda operations. There is no question that the policy of recruiting child soldiers is a policy of international secret service agencies.
Most often, those who are actually at fault in such circumstances pretend to the role of concern and would be protector. It is such a shame that the peoples of the world fall for this over and over again.
Not until root causes are understood is there any hope for the innocent children who are forced into this nightmare often by economic tragedies that are themselves the result of 'low-intensity' wars launched by the syndicated efforts of the world's corporate military elite.
The Iran Iraq war, well-known for its use of child soldiers, was being run on Iraq's side by American advisors and on Iran's side by German advisors. These genocidal programs that target children to be used in the violence are definitely being scripted by the military agencies and policies of the West.
More of HELL on Earth..it's almost overwhelming. May the souls of those who have instigated and encouraged this atrocity never find peace. What must go on in the minds of the children who have trusted these "adults"?