The United Nations Security Council is poised to "name and shame" for the first time five countries where child soldiers are being recruited in violation of international law.
It would be a mistake to think that children are being exploited as soldiers in only five countries in the world.
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The move, which was described as a "first salvo" by a UN special representative for children and armed conflict, is an attempt to demonstrate that the international community will seek to enforce standards, months after a landmark treaty outlawing the practice came into force.
The UN special representative, Olara Otunnu, will name on Monday Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Somalia as countries where 23 warring groups are still forcibly recruiting children who are under 16 to fight.
"This is a warning to them that the world is watching and that they will be held responsible for their conduct, vis-à-vis children," Mr Otunnu said. "It is hoped that the very fact of being named in a report destined for the UN Security Council will prove a strong deterrent. Even without further action, the fact of the list coming out will put enormous pressure on the parties. We hope that the parties will clean up their act."
If not, the Security Council could consider a range of punitive sanctions – including diplomatic isolation, or a crackdown on arms supplies or sources of financing. Mr Otunnu argues that UN sanctions targeting the Angolan rebel group UNITA in the 1990s in effect led to the end of the group.
Mr Otunnu's report points out that the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo and nine rebel groups there are using child soldiers. Rwanda and Uganda, which were among the external parties to the conflict, might have found themselves on the list as well had they not promised to withdraw under a peace agreement signed in July.
In Liberia, the government and rebels are also using child soldiers, as is Somalia – with its disparate clan-based factions – and Burundi.
In Afghanistan, the government of the President, Hamid Karzai, has pledged not to recruit children younger than 16. But remnants of the Taliban, and factions in the north and south of the country, are still breaking the law regarding the recruitment and deployment of child soldiers.
One of the political limitations of the UN approach is that the Security Council has agreed to name only those countries that are already on the council's agenda. That means other conflicts, including those in Colombia, Chechnya and even Northern Ireland – where Mr Otunnu says children are used by paramilitaries – will not be addressed by the council. Human Rights Watch welcomed the move to "name and shame" offenders yesterday but Jo Becker, the organization's child soldier specialist, added: "It would be a mistake to think that children are being exploited as soldiers in only five countries in the world."
Human Rights Watch has compiled its own shadow list of countries that still use child soldiers to coincide with the publication of the UN report. Top of the list is Burma, which is absent from the official list, and where the government is known to have forcibly recruited up to 70,000 children for the army.
Human Rights Watch also expresses concern about Uganda, where the rate of abductions to help boost the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has increased in recent months, and Colombia, where rebels and paramilitary forces also have recourse to children.
© 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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