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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 3 - 9 February 2000 Issue No. 467
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Special Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Children drop their arms
By Olara Otunnu *
A momentous step has been taken in the global effort to eradicate the use of children as soldiers. After six years of often difficult negotiations, a meeting in Geneva of the international community last Friday finally summoned the necessary political will and agreed to raise the age limit for both compulsory recruitment and participation in combat from 15 to 18. The outcome was a victory for children exposed to cynical exploitation in situations of armed conflict.
The widespread use of children in armed conflicts is one of the most horrendous trends in wars today. Compelled to become instruments of war, to kill and be killed, child soldiers are forced to give violent expression to the hatreds of adults. Today, over 300,000 young people under the age of 18 -- some as young as seven or eight, girls as well as boys -- are taking part in hostilities in over 30 countries. They are often abducted from schools, refugee camps or their homes. Girls are subjected to sexual abuse and rape, often on a systematic basis.
The reasons behind the participation of children in armed conflict -- in which they are routinely exposed to injury and death -- are many and various. In protracted conflicts -- witness 40 years of conflict in Colombia, 25 years in Angola, 20 years in Afghanistan -- recruitment of adults becomes ever more difficult, even as armed groups with no allegiances to central authority seek to exercise their total control over local civilian populations. Other youngsters may join armed forces or groups because socio-economic breakdown has eliminated any viable alternative. Still others are lured by the appeal of political, religious or ethnic ideology.
Above all, perhaps, children are impressionable and can be easily manipulated into becoming ruthless and unquestioning tools of war. Some of the worst atrocities in Sierra Leone were committed by child soldiers. And the proliferation of lightweight weapons -- requiring no physical prowess or technical expertise to manipulate -- has made it possible for very young children to bear and use arms.
The draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child agreed to in Geneva goes a long way to meet the goals we have been striving for. States are to take "all feasible measures" to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not reached the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities. States are to ensure that people who have not reached 18 are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces.
Regarding insurgent groups and rebels, the agreement prohibits recruitment or participation of people under 18 "under any circumstances".
The one aspect in which the agreement falls short of the "straight 18" position that I have advocated is in voluntary enlistment into national armed forces. Nevertheless, the raising of the minimum age to at least 16 and the inclusion of specific and verifiable safeguards -- including the provision of reliable proof of age and the informed consent of both volunteer and parents -- represent an improvement on existing standards.
We can now insist unequivocally on 18 as the age limit for involvement in conflict by parties in both international and internal conflicts. Until now, this has been a matter of voluntary commitment. We must organise more effectively to monitor and ensure adherence by parties in conflict to their commitments and obligations to protect children -- leaning ever more urgently on armed groups that are abusing children as combatants right now. We have also been set free to concentrate on what really matters: the curbing of child soldiering on the ground. So I appeal to the international community to mobilise a movement of political pressure, naming and shaming -- and refusing support for -- such armed groups.
It is equally imperative to address the political, social and economic factors which create the environment that facilitates the exploitation of children in this way. We must also press our governments to respond more effectively to the needs of ex-child soldiers by mobilising necessary resources to the development of better-tailored programmes for their healing and social reintegration, not least to avert the prospect of their being recycled into violence.
Children represent the future of every society. But the loss of their childhood and innocence, schooling and health-care and the heritage of deep psychological scars blight the futures of the children of war. The lives thus destroyed and the opportunities lost have devastating effects on the long-term stability and development of their societies.
The Optional Protocol is a major victory for children exposed to abuse and brutalisation in situations of armed conflict. This milestone agreement deserves swift approval, ratification and implementation by all states.
* The writer is UN under-secretary-general and special representative of the secretary-general for Children and Armed Conflict.
