Home › Blogs › Oscar's blog

300,000 children are used in armed conflicts in 30 countries. 40% of them are girls.

Fri, 2011-12-02 16:33 — Oscar

Photo: Young adolescents in civilian clothing move away from the arms they used when they were soldiers after evacuation from a combat zone in Sudan.

 

This is still happening today. 

Many of them have been abducted. They fight and are used as sexual slaves. Sometimes they are forced to watch or participate in the torture or execution of other people, even their own family. Theirabductors take advantage of the fact that children are suggestible and instil them with fear. Once terrorised, they are forced to train and fight, often in the first line of fire as human shields. They are subjected to all types of abuse and extreme acts. They are also used as spies, messengers and porters. They lose all their rights and if they manage to survive, are often rejected by their families or communities. Girl child soldiers suffer from twice the amount of discrimination, sexual abuse and violence. During reinsertion processes they do not normally receive the care and attention they need and may again fall into the hands of recruiters.

 

Direct testimonies

Excellent film by Fernando León de Aranoa. In the north of Uganda, children are afraid of being abducted at night and explain their experiences. Some have already been soldiers.

PART 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZJcdymTfcQ&feature=related

PART 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3M6YAJJoseE&feature=related

 

Photo: Joseph Kony is the leader of the Lord Resistance Army (LRA). Since 1987 the LRA has abducted 30,000 children in Uganda and used them as soldiers and sexual slaves.

 

Voluntary recruitment

In other cases, the children decide to voluntarily join the militia or other armed groups because of the extreme precariousness of their situation or to seek revenge for the death of their parents. Others are even sent by their parents, as shown in the film by Werner Herzog “Ballad of the Little Soldier” (1984).

 

Girl child soldiers: invisible victims

“I was living in Foya when the government troops arrived. I stayed with them from 1999 to 2003. I was abducted together with other girls. We were eight in all. The commander raped us all. Now I have stomach problems. I was told that I had an infection, but when I take the medicine I don't feel any better. During the program for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration I was in my village looking for traditional medicine, and that is how I missed out. I am still not all that well”.

Faith was 13 years old when she was captured by government troops in Liberia.

 

Photo: Grace Akallo was abducted by the LRA in Uganda. Seven months later she managed to escape. Grace now tries to help other children who have suffered the same fate.

 

Girls are used for combat and also as sexual slaves. They are often discriminated against and excluded from disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration processes. Furthermore, they have special needs that are not always taken into account in these programs; the ones that suffer from sexual violence are exposed to sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS, and becoming pregnant.

In 2008, the Attorney General's office of Colombia studied 183 cases of women and girls victims of sexual violence. 31.2% of them had become pregnant while associated with armed groups; 40% of them got pregnant when they were between 11 and 14 years old. The incidence is even higher in other countries.

Quite often the families or communities ostracise girls that come back home after the conflict or escape, and this is even more so when they return pregnant or with babies.

The stigma that is still associated with sexual violence and the fear of reporting it prevent many girls from having access to necessary medical services and psychological care. 

 

Photo: Girl child soldiers with other people attending a meeting of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) in Tila, Rolpa district (Nepal). © Marcus Bleasdale 2005

 

The legal setting and its application

Legal framework, international initiatives and legal instruments

The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Paris Principles are the bases of the legal framework.

The Protocol of the Convention on the Rights of the Child relative to the participation of children in armed conflicts raised the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities to 18 years.

With this initiative signing countries joined the United Nations campaign: “Zero under 18” seeking universal ratification of this protocol by 12 February 2012, the tenth anniversary of its coming into effect..

The International Criminal Court was constituted in 2002. This tribunal, among other responsibilities, can take measures to determine the individual criminal responsibility of those who recruit and use minors in hostilities.

Photo: Sudanese in favour of Omar Al Bashir demonstrate in front of the African Union building in Darfur in March 2009 with a banner where the prosecutor the International Criminal Court is caricatured as a pig. Al Bashir expelled an NGO and international observers from its territory after the prosecutor presented a formal charge for war crimes. (Abd Raouf / AP)

 

Insufficient progress

The 2008 Global Report on child soldiers admits that “the rate of the advances is slow and the tens of thousands of minors that are members of combat forces have not yet felt its effects”, and that “the international framework offers very little real protection” for the uncountable number of children running the risk of being recruited to fight in conflicts.

The 2008 Global Report comes to a series of disturbing conclusions where “it is clear that the initiatives carried out to date have been insufficient”. The next Global Report will be published in 2012, but no significant changes seem to have taken place.

 

Photo: “uninvolved in Africa” The passivity of United Nations Security Council missions has often been criticised, and serious irregularities have also been observed.

 

Still without penal results

“They filled in the forms and asked me my age, and when I said “16” they slapped me and said: “You're 18. Answer 18”. They asked me again, and I said: “But that is my real age”. The Sergeant asked: “Then why did you enlist in the Army?” and I answered: “Against my will. I was abducted”. He said. “Well, then keep your mouth shut”, and filled in the form. I only wanted to go home, and I told them, but they refused to listen. I told them: “Then let me make only one phone call”, but they denied that too.”

Maung Zaw Oo, describing the second time he was recruited by force into the Tatmadaw Kyi (army) in 2005. Myanmar (Burma).

The case of the unending trial being carried out in the International Criminal Court against Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, one of the warlords of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is dotted with serious irregularities that could have been foreseen.

To date the International Criminal Court has not been capable of finding any person guilty of recruiting a minor, and it was created in 2002.

 

Thomas Lubanga - CPI (c)

In any case, international justice is selective and the real agents behind this, and all the conflicts where hundreds of thousands of child soldiers are involved, are not indicted.

 

Obstacles to justice: some examples

United States, China, many countries of the European Union, etc., often violate the sovereignty of other countries with the argument that there are violations of human rights or under the pretext of establishing trade relationships.

The United States boycotted the International Criminal Court when its Congress passed the American Service Members' Protection Act or ASPA, prohibiting the extradition of any person from the United States to the Court. This act also prohibited United States military aid to the countries that formed part of the International Criminal Court.

During the Conference that established the Statute of Rome, the instrument constituting the International Criminal Court, the United States, Israel and China campaigned against it. Countries such as Germany deny asylum for child soldiers. More recently, the United States has made an approach to the International Criminal Court by sending observers. The United States is interested in having the Darfur conflict (Sudan) declared as genocide (it is in fact genocide), but not for humanitarian reasons, but rather to be able to openly intervene in Sudan. Meanwhile, Moscow considers the order of the International Criminal Court against the president of Sudan to be a “dangerous precedent”. 

 

Photo: One of the child soldiers of the Thomas Lubanga organisation in June 2003 (AP/Karel Prinsloo)

 

Barriers to justice and obstacles to information or its manipulation are continually taking place in many countries and agencies.

In spite of the almost universal condemnation of the use of child soldiers and the legal setting to stop this activity, the lack of political will is an obstacle to making specific improvements and providing these children with effective protection on the ground.

Video: Speech by Elena Valenciano in the plenary session of the European Parliament on 27 September 2006 on the situation in Darfur (Sudan). In 2006 other figures were mentioned, but inDarfur more than 400,000 people have already died. The systematic and massive rape of women in the civil population is used as a weapon of war as is the use of child soldiers in combat.

Link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o2yOnUVZl4

The world situation continues to be shameful and international policies, controlled precisely by the countries that cause humanitarian disasters, are based on a system that is not designed to resolve injustice, but to potentiate it.

 

Specific cases: Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur (Sudan)

 

The focus of NGOs: one example, the case of Chad

“One day I asked Larry: Hey, why don't you come to the School? At the time we were opening a school in the refugee camp. He gave me an answer I will never forget. He said: Because with the gun I get food, those who know how to read go hungry”.

(Gonzalo Sánchez-Terán, Regional Advocacy Officer for West Africa and Program Manager for the JRS in Chad).

 

Photo: Child soldier in Abeche (Chad)

 

Seven thousand child soldiers could be involved in the conflict in Chad.

In May 2007, it became known that Russia had sold the majority of the arms being used to revive the conflict between Sudan and Chad. In August 2006 Chad diplomatically recognized China. This support has been transformed into enormous projects of financial aid to Chad from the Asian giant and in million dollar investments in the oil sector that only benefit few people.

France publicly supports the Chad military through defence and intelligence agreements. It maintains three military bases that have prevented the Government of the president Idris Déby Itno falling before the advances of insurgents.

The United States also supports Chad by providing military aid and training. In 2006 Washington provided military aid to Chad to the value de 2,200,000 dollars; and since 1990, this aid totals almost 40 million dollars. Since 2005, Chad has formed part of the Trans-Saharan Counter-terrorism Initiative, lead and financed by the United States.

 

The Chad Ministry of Defence admitted that they use child soldiers.

We are speaking of Russia, China, France and the United States, four countries with one thing in common: they are four permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.

On the one hand, the United States and France, through the European Union, are financing large United Nations agencies and humanitarian work projects in refugee camps and at the same time, these same countries are financing and permitting the war that has caused this humanitarian crisis and encourages the recruitment of child soldiers.

For some reason the NGOs dissociate the causes from the effects and treat the symptoms, the drama of refugees and displaced persons, as if in reality it were the disease, closing their eyes and lowering their voices before those responsible for so much tragedy.

When speaking of child soldiers the NGOs immediately think about disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs (DDR). They place all the emphasis on the work required to get these children away from a world of armed violence and return them to a society where they find the paths to peace and well-being.

DDR programs are expensive and the NGOs are always asking for more funds and more resources to carry them out. However, while the NGOs shout themselves hoarse asking for ways to resolve the problem, they are hardly heard denounce the geopolitical and economic contexts that permit or rather require the existence of child soldiers.

Denouncing and changing these situations is called prevention in humanitarian language. Prevention should be the real priority of NGOs.

 

Insurgent Terrorism and State Terrorism: the case of Colombia

“I escaped one day during the day. I had left all my weapons behind. I was on guard duty and I snuck away. They caught me after an hour. The militia recognized me, even though I had changed into civilian clothes. I cried when they caught me. I begged them to let me go. They chained me up with a metal chain. I couldn't move my arms. At the war council, I wasn't allowed to talk. But luckily, they voted not to kill me. Instead, they made me dig twenty meters of trenches, make twenty trips to get wood, and ordered me tied to a pole for two weeks. I had to give a talk in front of everyone explaining why I had tried to desert, why I had made this mistake”.

“Adriana the reluctant child guerrilla who told us this story was lucky. The guerrilla war council chose not to order her execution”.

(Extract from the Report: Colombia: “You'll learn not to cry”, by Human Rights Watch). 

 

Photo: FARC guerrillas (Colombia)

 

It is estimated that there are about 14,000 child soldiers in Colombia. About 11,000 minors are in the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the rest are in the National Liberation Army (ELN) and paramilitary groups.

If we consider that this conflict has already lasted 50 years, the number of children involved multiplies rapidly. The mean recruitment age is between 12 and 13.

 

Ominous “Publicity” by the government

According to Child Soldiers International, reports were published of extrajudicial executions of children and youths by members of the armed forces as a result of “false recruitments” in the towns of Soacha, Cundinamarca and Toluviejo, the purpose being to show positive results in the fight against insurgents.

 

Types of recruitment in Colombia

Paramilitary groups are present in and around schools where they use tricks to attract children and youths into their ranks, or involve them indirectly or directly in the activities of these groups through intimidation of teachers and visits to educational institutions.

Photo: María is a Colombian ex-combatant. She was recruited when she was 12 years old and at 16 managed to demobilise. She has been demobilised for 9 years and now collaborates in programs for the recognition of basic rights for children.

 

Inhuman laws

In spite of the fact that Colombia is apparently under the scrutiny of International organisations (for example the International Criminal Court), the situation tends to get worse without any glimpse of significant advances to guarantee that children and youths are not involved in armed conflict and that their right not to go to war is respected.

According to the system created under the new Code of Infancy and Adolescence in Colombia, this is what is in store for children, youths who have committed a crime:

  • Children between 14 and 18 years could be imprisoned for up to eight years.
  • Children who have been members of armed groups taking part in the hostilities, and who are victims of the crime of recruitment of minors, could be subject to the system of juvenile criminal responsibility in the event of having committed human rights violations.

 

This “exception” becomes the general rule as the majority of these children, because of their subordination within the armed group, are obliged to commit criminal offences, and so they can be sentenced to prison terms of up to eight years, whereas many commanders of the pro-government paramilitary groups responsible for the crime of child recruitment, continue receiving benefits or alternative sentences.

The rights of children will not be truly re-established for those who have incurred in activities contrary to criminal law, nor for those not associated with armed conflict.

The real undertone of the conflict in Colombia is drug trafficking. The government, the paramilitary and the guerrillas are all involved and they all use child soldiers.

 

Genocide in Africa

In 1998 war broke out in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This war is known as the second Congo war, the “Great War of Africa” or the “Coltan War”. Nine African nations were involved; it is the largest continental African conflict of all time, and the largest conflict since the Second World War, with four million victims. The mass media barely mentioned it.

One of the characteristics of this conflict is the interethnic hate between Hutus and Tutsis and also between Hemas and Lendus that multinational companies and interested countries take advantage of, exacerbate and manipulate. The United States, Belgium, France, Germany, England and other countries are involved in this manipulation. The precedent is the first Congo war and before that the devastating Rwanda Genocide (2004), where more than 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were assassinated in only a hundred days by radical members of the Hutu tribe, even though the United Nations knew that this genocide was taking place. Before that, vast massacres also took place in Burundi.

The genocide in Rwanda was the catalyst for the subsequent Congolese genocide: the first and second Congo wars.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo holds a strategic position on the African continent as it has frontiers with 9 other countries.

And is an area very rich in natural resources, but especially to the east of the country there is a power vacuum. This area has gold, diamonds, oil, cobalt, copper and noble wood species.

It is also a region with an abundance of coltan, a resource that is scarce in the world and very important as one of its components, tantalum, is used for the production of mobile telephones, satellites, nuclear reactors and missiles.

In spite of the peace agreements reached in 2003 the struggle persists for control of the coltan and other mining operations. 

 

Map: militia and ore deposits in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2008 (Conrad Taylor).

 

The value of coltan increased tremendously in December 2000 because of great demand. In this same year the conflict intensified and the fighting in only the border area between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda and Rwanda involved more than 20,000 child soldiers.

The United States and multinational companies operating in the area control support Uganda and Rwanda, countries that use militias to dominate the coltan deposits in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where there is also a puppet government. The military forces of the Congo are also involved. The control is fierce. These militias attack and plunder the population, commit systematic massive rape, recruit child soldiers and collect a tax on the duties paid for mining operations.

The arms come from abroad. The areas in conflict are flooded with arms, including low calibre automatic rifles whose light weight and simple operation make them ideal for use by children.

 

Maï Maï child soldiers receiving instruction at the “Political Training Camp” in Mangangu, Beni, Democratic Republic of the Congo. July 2003. © AI

 

Darfur (Sudan)

Apart from the Rwandan genocide and the ongoing Congolese genocide, since 2003 there has also been genocide in Darfur (Sudan) that has already claimed the lives of 400,000 victims and created more than two and a half million refugees.

Darfur is one of the key parts in the geostrategic balance between various lines of conflict (competition between the West, the Arab and Muslim world and China for areas of influence and oil supplies). The genocide in Darfur is a humanitarian disaster, which, together with the preceding ones, gives us an idea of the gravity of the situation. During 2004, approximately 17,000 children served in government forces, armed militias and opposition groups.

Combatant in Darfur (Sudan)

 

The United States and China maintain a war to obtain control of the resources in Africa through operations under false flags, although sometimes, and in spite of financing opposing governments, several western oil and mining companies are associated with Chinese companies to exploit African natural resources.

The Governments and companies from developed countries are the real warlords that cause genocide, institute puppet governments, redefine borders and train the officials who in turn recruit hundreds of thousands of child soldiers to fight for the interests of adults. The genocides target the physical and moral destruction of woman as the driving force of the society and that of the children, its future.

 

Countries affected

"We are planting human bombs by involving children in armed conflicts. These children will grow up with a thirst for vengeance in their hearts". (Grace Akallo)

The largest number child soldiers are in Africa. They are being used in armed conflicts in the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Somalia, and Sudan (and they were also used in Libya).

In Asia thousands of minors are enrolled in armed forces involved in active conflicts; the refusal of the governments to allow access to these conflictive areas makes it difficult to make precise estimates of the numbers. Myanmar is a special case because its government forcefully recruits and uses children aged between 12 and 18. There are also child soldiers in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines and Thailand, countries where the majority of child soldiers are mainly in armed groups of the opposition, or groups made up of ethnic or religious minorities. 

 

Child soldier in Myanmar

 

In the Middle East there are child soldiers in Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Israel, and also in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as in tribal groups in Yemen. In the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Pakistan adolescents are used to perpetrate suicide attacks. Israel defence forces used children as human shields on several occasions.

In South America there are about 14,000 child soldiers in Colombia fighting in the FARC and in paramilitary groups. In Venezuela military training is given to minors.

 

Photo: Hugo Chávez, the President de Venezuela, ordered military training for children in primary school. The Caribbean leader reformed the law of the Armed Forces to establish obligatory military training. They indoctrinate them and teach shooting and marching. The opposition has already shown its disagreement with this measure and say that it is to "quell" protests in the streets (AP)

 

In Europe it is believed that there are under-age children involved in Turkey and several other armed groups in the Republic of Chechnya (Russia), although is not possible to establish figures because of the lack of information available. Until mid 2005 British forces sent several soldiers under 18 years of age to Iraq.

In some countries, instead of helping them return to their families and communities, the government forces have imprisoned child soldiers who had escaped, surrendered or been captured. The United States, Israel and Burundi figure among the countries that have maltreated or tortured minors suspected of having been associated with armed groups.

At least 63 governments (including those of Britain and the United States), allow voluntary recruitment of adolescents between 16 and 17 years of age. The young recruits, considered too young to vote or buy alcoholic drinks, are subjected to military discipline and dangerous activities and are exposed to abuse.

According to the 2008 Global Report on child soldiers “when armed conflict breaks out, resumes or intensifies, it will be almost unavoidable that these minors become soldiers”.

 

All the countries where child soldiers are involved in combat have something in common: the interests of developed countries, who continue to prejudice millions of innocent people. 

 

Photo: Plaque commemorating the 139 girls abducted by the LRA (Lord Resistance Army) on 9 October 1996 from Saint Mary College in Aboke (Uganda). One of those abducted was Grace Akallo. Among the abductors were child soldiers who had also been forced to fight in the conflict.

 

Translated by Rod Bowman (thanks to him !).

__________________________

Sources and Links of interest

Your rating: None Average: 4.5 (4 votes)