Sports, kids and war
Dena Rashed attends the launch of the "Children and War" campaign by football stars and humanitarian activists
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The all too well-known scenes of Mohamed Al-Durra's murder; learning to fight at an early age; a Palestinian girl under siege; a favourite game of Palestinian children these days is to play "martyr"
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this week dedicated its 2003 campaign to children affected by war. The campaign was officially launched in Cairo on 24 January with the Meridien Football Cup kick-off.
The "Children and War" campaign aims at identifying the problems that children face during armed conflict. The timing of the campaign is fortuitous, considering a recent ICRC report which stated that, of all people who are provided with help by the ICRC on a worldwide basis, three out of five are children. Further, in 2001 the ICRC managed to visit 346,807 detainees in 65 countries, 2,565 of which were boys and girls under the age of 18.
The ICRC is using soccer -- namely the Meridien Football Cup organised by the European Union Football Association (EUFA) in association with the African Football Federation (CAF) and the Egyptian Football Federation (EFF) -- to draw public attention to the importance of the issue.
Under the "Africa vs Europe" logo, top officials from the EUFA, CAF, the Egyptian Red Crescent (ERC), and the Cairo office of the ICRC rubbed shoulders with sports stars such as Ahmed Hossam, who plays for AFC Ajax. Together, they announced the launch of the campaign.
Mahmoud Gabr, secretary-general of the ERC, told Al-Ahram Weekly, that "the problem of children and war does not exist in Egypt. However, we are furious that it is present in many parts of the world, so we are doing our best to raise people's awareness regarding the magnitude of the issue as well as following up on the latest efforts of ICRC."
Says Gerhard Aigner, member of the Executive Committee of the EUFA "this is a good chance for us to remind the world about the issue of armed conflicts where children become the target. We hope that a campaign like this will raise the awareness of young people on the continents of Africa and Europe."
Koeman Ronald, the coach of AFC Ajax, added that football, this time, is not just about games and business, it is in the interest of children, and "we will do our best to have a successful tournament."
The EUFA has provided financial support for various ICRC humanitarian projects under the joint cooperation agreement signed between the two in 1997. So far, the EUFA has donated five billion Swiss francs to support ICRC activities. The aim of the campaign, according to the EUFA, is to reinforce the concepts of solidarity and fairness among young people.
The Egyptian minister of youth, Alieddin Hilal, delivered Mrs Suzanne Mubarak's speech at the opening ceremony of the Meridien Cup and noted that " [just] as sports require [the players] to follow rules which entail showing respect for others, so too do the ICRC and the ERC require respect for human dignity and the protection of the lives of the children in armed conflicts."
A major goal of this year's campaign is to raise the minimum age of recruitment in armies all around the world to 18 years. The International Humanitarian Law (IHL) calls on those involved in armed conflicts not to recruit children who are less than 15 years old to take part in direct hostile action.
The Child's Rights Treaty defines a child as an individual under 18 years of age, but also specifies the minimum age for participation in direct hostile action as 15 years. The Optional Protocol, which came into effect in 2002, resolved the discrepancies between both stipulations, specifying that a person must be over 18 before becoming involved in direct military action, and banning conscription of people under 18. It also calls on signatories to raise the minimum age for voluntary recruitment to the armed forces. One of ICRC's main aims for the campaign is to draw attention to the Optional Protocol.
The ICRC also seeks to provide protection for children who lose their families during and after armed conflicts, to ensure the safety of children in detention, as well as making every effort to secure their release. Providing safe access for children to basic food supplies, medicine, and health care are also on top of the ICRC agenda.
"A campaign like this does not have a specific time limit to assess its success; it is a long-term goal," Bernard Pfefferle, head of the ICRC delegation in Egypt, told the Weekly. "The campaign is basically based on the promotion of International Humanitarian Law and respect for human dignity. It is a permanent campaign," he added.
