On Our Covert Art

Our cover art for this is issue is the logo of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers calling for a ban on child soldiers worldwide.  See Ahilan Kadirgamar’s editorial in this issue and the Collective for Batticaloa’s ‘Also In Our Name’ report for further discussion of child recruitment in relation to the Sri Lankan context.

ABOUT CHILD SOLDIERS

http://www.child-soldiers.org

"I would like you to give a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don't have to pass through this violence."

The 15-year-old girl who ended an interview to Amnesty International with this plea was forcibly abducted at night from her home...by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an armed opposition movement fighting the Ugandan Government. She was made to kill a boy who tried to escape. She witnessed another boy being hacked to death for not raising the alarm when a friend ran away. She received 35 days of military training and was sent to fight.

Some facts about child soldiers

More than 300,000 children under 18 are fighting in armed conflicts in more than thirty countries worldwide.  While most child soldiers are aged between 15 and 18, many are recruited from the age of 10 and sometimes even younger. Both girls and boys are used as soldiers; girls are at particular risk of rape, sexual harassment and abuse.

The widespread availability of modern lightweight weapons enables children to become efficient killers in combat; child soldiers are often used for special tasks, including to commit atrocities against their own families and communities. While many children fight in the frontline, others are used as spies, messengers, sentries, porters, servants and even sexual slaves; children are often used to lay and clear landmines.

While some children are recruited forcibly, others are driven into armed forces by poverty, alienation and discrimination. Many children join armed groups because of their own experience of abuse at the hands of state authorities.

Both governments and armed groups use children because they are easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience; sometimes, children are supplied drugs and alcohol.  Children are often treated brutally and punishments for mistakes or desertion are severe; children are injured and sometimes killed during harsh training regimes.

Towards a ban on child soldiers

There is a growing international consensus against the use of children as soldiers:

• The new International Criminal Court will treat the use of child soldiers as a war crime
• The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has defined child soldiering as one of the worst forms of child labour
• The UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the UN Commission on Human Rights, the Organisation for African Unity, the Organisation of American States and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have all condemned this abuse

International humanitarian law and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child set 15 as the minimum age for military recruitment and participation in armed conflict. But a new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

• prohibits governments and armed groups from using children under the age of 18 in conflict;
• bans all compulsory recruitment of under 18s;
• bans voluntary recruitment of under 18s by armed groups;
• raises the minimum age and requires strict safeguards for voluntary recruitment

The use of children as weapons of war is like the use of landmines or chemical and biological weapons – simply unacceptable in any circumstances.

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