Tag Archive for: Child Soldiers

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From playground to battleground: children on the frontline in Somalia

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from The Guardian, reporter Mohamad Shil

As the rattle of gunfire becomes louder, Mohamed Abdi sits in the corner of a Mogadishu restaurant wondering how much longer he can survive in one of the world’s most dangerous capital cities. “Mogadishu is full of miseries. Sometimes you fall into traps and can be abducted by either government forces or insurgents, to fight for their cause,” says the 15-year-old.

Thousands have been displaced because of fighting between government forces and al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group linked to al-Qaida. Abdi is fortunate in that he recently found work as a waiter, but not so long ago he was involved in urban warfare.

As Somalia‘s civil conflict continues, the use of child soldiers is causing growing concern. In a report last month, Amnesty International detailed cases of children as young as nine being forced into combat. The report – In the line of fire: Somalia’s children under attack – exposes the ongoing conflict’s impact on children, arguing that both Somalia’s transitional federal government and al-Shabaab are guilty of gross human rights violations.

“As a child in Somalia, you risk death all the time,” says Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International’s deputy director for Africa. “You can be killed, recruited and sent to the frontline, punished by al-Shabaab because you are caught listening to music or wearing the ‘wrong’ clothes, be forced to fend for yourself because you have lost your parents, or even die because you don’t have access to adequate medical care.”

Read more

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Police Arrest Ex-Maoist Child Soldiers in Nepal

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AFP

KATHMANDU – At least 40 former Maoist child soldiers, freed last year from camps, were detained Monday during a protest to demand better training to help them reintegrate into civilian life, police said.

They were among more than 4,000 minors who had served in the Maoist army during Nepal’s decade-long civil war and were discharged from UN-supervised camps last year after officials discovered they had been underage combatants.

“We detained the young people because they were blocking vehicles in public places. Around 100 protesters had gathered,” Kathmandu police chief Kedar Rijal told AFP.

Under the discharge scheme, the former child soldiers were supposed to undergo a government training program funded by the United Nations.

The program aimed to provide the young people with a choice of formal schooling, vocational training in such areas as tailoring, education to become health workers and help in setting up small businesses.

But the protesters said the training had left them “only half-skilled”.

“We can’t re-integrate into the society because we still face a stigma. We’re not properly trained for any job. The government must provide us with a long-term solution,” Krishna Prasad Dangal told AFP. “We are only half-skilled,” he said.

Police did not say when they expected to release the young people. The fate of the more than 19,000 older former Maoist fighters, who have been living in camps across the impoverished Himalayan nation since the civil war ended in 2006, is still unclear.

Nepal’s political leaders are split over whether to allow the ex-rebels to join the country’s military. Some Maoists have threatened to take up arms again if they do not like a new constitution which is due to be drafted.

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UN Passes Resolution Against Recruitment of Child Soldiers

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Agence France-Presse

UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council unanimously adopted on Tuesday a resolution against recruitment of child soldiers, pressing nations to halt the abuse of children including rape and attacks on schools.

In its report on child soldiers last year, the United Nations for the first time named military forces and rebel groups that persistently used children in armed conflict.

The groups included Myanmar’s national army and two rebel militant groups in the country; three insurgent groups in the Philippines; the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia; armies and militias in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and pro-government militias in Sudan as well as the southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army.

The signatories “call upon member states concerned to take decisive and immediate action against persistent perpetrators of violations and abuses committed against children in situations of armed conflict, and further call upon them to bring to justice those responsible for such violations.”

The resolution highlighted actions prohibited under international law, including “recruitment and use of children, killing and maiming, rape and other sexual violence, attacks on schools and/or hospitals.”

It also cited “the primary role of governments in providing protection and relief to all children affected by armed conflicts,” and said it was “the responsibility of states to end impunity and to prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other egregious crimes perpetrated against children.”

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the resolution — an initiative by current Security Council president Germany — is the eighth since 1998 to condemn nations and militaries which use children to wage war and subject them to brutal violence like rape and maimings.

“Let us keep working together to ensure that children everywhere can grow up safe, healthy and educated so they can build a secure and sustainable future,” he said.

Late last month Ban expressed concern about the growing number of attacks on schools and hospitals, threatening to employ “targeted measures against repeat violators — especially non-state actors.”

At the time he said he welcomed efforts by the Security Council to negotiate the resolution which adds attacks on schools and hospitals as a listing criteria in the annual UN reports on children and armed conflict.

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Child Soldiers Add Questions for Pakistan

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Bill Gunyon, OneWorld Guides

(OneWorld.net) – A new focus on Pakistan in the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on Children and Armed Conflict may complicate the task of rebuilding relations with the US in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Submitted to the Security Council as part of the UN’s responsibility for promoting and protecting the rights of children, Ban Ki-moon’s 55-page report paints a grim picture of the entrapment of both boys and girls in the world’s most degrading conflicts.

From the section headed “Developments in Pakistan”, it is clear that children have become active agents within the flow of warmongering personnel and equipment across the notoriously porous border with Afghanistan. Their assignments range from passive couriers to tragically unwitting suicide bombers in both countries.

The report refers to the escalation of terrorist and sectarian violence across Pakistan by groups linked to the Taliban and Al Qaeda, such as Tehrik-i-Taliban and Lashkar i Jhangvi. “Children have been used by these armed groups to carry out suicide attacks,” the UN says.

The most damning evidence is cited by the UN child rights monitoring team in Afghanistan which claims to possess “documented and verified cases of Afghan children recruited and trained in Pakistan by armed groups, including the Taliban.”

Such exploitation of children from both countries inside Pakistan will come as a disappointment to UN agencies after earlier reassurances given by Pakistan authorities.

In his corresponding report published a year ago, the Secretary-General referred to Pakistan’s formal submission to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. This promised “strict measures to stop recruitment of children by non-State actors, in addition to initiating reforms to streamline and regulate the madrasahs that were the major source.”

Nevertheless, advisers to Ban Ki-moon have stopped short of recommending that militant groups active in Pakistan should be included in the report’s “list of parties” that recruit or use children in armed conflict.

This annexed list is significant in that it may provoke the UN Security Council into demanding government action plans to enforce protection of children.

In some circumstances the list can also trigger a response under the US Child Soldier Prevention Act. Signed into law in 2008, this law blocks US military aid to countries which support paramilitary or militia groups recruiting under-age personnel. The armed forces in Pakistan are very substantially dependent on US aid.

The question of whether or not the Pakistan government and its institutions “support” terrorist groups lies at the heart of recriminations following the death of bin Laden on Pakistan territory at the hands of special US forces.

There is an unexpected twist in the UN report on Children and Armed Conflict which may add fuel to this bonfire of ambiguities.

The report addresses circumstances in which children are the victims of violence, as well as perpetrators. The Secretary-General has highlighted his concerns about attacks on schools and hospitals by anarchic militant groups. In conflict zones, schools may find themselves in the firing line from various quarters, from religious zealots to recruiting sergeants.

Amongst 15 countries identified by Ban Ki-moon as suffering such attacks, Pakistan stands out. Groups opposed to secular education and girls’ education have destroyed no fewer than 273 schools in Malakand, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The Secretary-General has chosen this issue for the headline recommendation of his report. He requests that “the Security Council add parties to conflict that are attacking schools and hospitals to the annex of the report.”

It seems very likely therefore that militant groups in Pakistan will be added to what is described in the UN press release as the “List of Shame”.

Whether exposure in a child rights context will trigger consequences for US-Pakistan relations is very uncertain. Indeed Ban Ki-moon has stamped his impartiality on the report by including reference to controversial US drone attacks on targets inside Pakistan.

“No data is available on the number of children killed or injured in those attacks,” the report says. “The United Nations does not have access to these sites to undertake any independent verification.”

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Child Soldiers are being used by Muammar al-Gaddafi’s Regime

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from the news.scotsman.com:

 Gaddafi’s new force of child soldiers revealed

By Ruth Sherlock

COLONEL Muammar al-Gaddafi is using child soldiers in his battle to regain the besieged Libyan town of Misrata, The Scotsman has learned.

Boys as young as 15 are being conscripted, say government troops captured by the rebels.

Ninety boys, between the ages of 15 and 19, were called to military barracks in Tripoli “for training” as soon as the 17 February popular uprising began, Murad, 16, and another captive, Abdul, have independently told The Scotsman.

Speaking from different medical clinics in the besieged city, the young men were unwilling to reveal their full identities for fear of reprisals against their relatives in areas still controlled by the dictator’s forces.

The use of soldiers younger than 18 in combat adds to the list of war crimes accusations against Col Gaddafi, after it emerged in the last few days that his units were using Spanish-made cluster bombs in Misrata – which pose particular risk to civilians because they scatter small bomblets over a wide area. Most of the world’s nations have banned the use of the munitions. The Libyan government has rejected the allegations. Read more

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Somalia: Recruitment of Child Soldiers on the Increase

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Source: Content Partner // IRIN

NAIROBI – With the escalation of fighting across Somalia since January, armed groups have reportedly recruited more child soldiers to their ranks, some even forcing teachers to enlist pupils.

In a recent offensive against rebel groups in Bulo Hawo town on the border with Kenya [ https://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92070 ], the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) stated on 17 March, “…children were involved as fighters and a significant number of them were killed. According to reports, intense fighting in the area between Dhusamareb and Ceel bur in Galgadud has also resulted in many child casualties.”

“The TFG [Transitional Federal Government] forces, their allies, the Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama, and Al-Shabab are all engaged in the recruitment. Al-Shabab [the largest armed opposition group] is the biggest culprit,” said an official working with an NGO that monitors the state of children in the country. The official, who asked not to be named, did not suggest the African Union’s TFG-supporting military mission in Somalia, AMISOM, was also using children. Read more

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Iran ‘Using Child Soldiers’ to Suppress Tehran Protests

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By: Robert Tait
The Observer

Iran‘s Islamic regime is using “child soldiers” to suppress anti-government demonstrations, a tactic that could breach international law forbidding the use of underage combatants, human rights activists have told the Observer.

The International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran says troops aged between 14 and 16 have been armed with batons, clubs and air guns and ordered to attack demonstrators who have tried to gather in Tehran. The youths – apparently recruited from rural areas – are being deployed in regular riot police roles and comprise up to one-third of the total force, according to witnesses.

One middle-aged woman, who said she was attacked by the youths, reported that some were as young as 12 and were possibly prepubescent. They had rural accents, which indicated they had been brought in from villages far from Tehran, she said.

Some told her they had been attracted by the promise of chelo kebab dinners, one of Iran’s national dishes.

“It’s really a violation of international law. It’s no different than child soldiers, which is the custom in many zones of conflict,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the campaign’s executive director. “They are being recruited into being part of the conflict and armed for it.”

The UN convention on the rights of the child requires states to take “all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities”.

The allegation comes amid efforts by Iran’s opposition Green movement to revive the mass protests that challenged President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s re-election in 2009, which opponents say was rigged. Drawing encouragement from the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, organisers have vowed to stage demonstrations every Tuesday.

Protesters who gathered on 1 March and a week later were met by a blanket security presence, which activists say refined the tactics used to crush the post-election revolt, when smaller detachments of youths were used informally by the hardline Basij militia.

Last Tuesday youthful riot squads formed along Valiasr Street, Tehran’s central thoroughfare, and forced pedestrians to run an intimidating gauntlet. Protesters chanting anti-government slogans were attacked. Multiple arrests were reported.

“They are very keen to display violence. Teenage boys are notorious for that,” said Ghaemi. “They are being used to ensure there is a good ratio of government forces to protesters and because the average policeman in Tehran could have some kind of family connection to the people they have to beat up. It’s a classic tactic to bring people from outside, because they have no sense of sympathy for city dwellers.”

The renewed clampdown coincides with concern over the whereabouts of the Green movement’s nominal leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. Both were apparently placed under house arrest last month and then reported to have been taken into detention, despite official denials.

Robert Tait is a senior correspondent for RFE/RL and a former Tehran correspondent for the Observer.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

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UN Says Reports of Child Soldiers Being Recruited in Libya

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The Canadian Press – ONLINE EDITION

By: The Associated Press

GENEVA – U.N. officials say they are getting reports that child soldiers are being recruited to fight for Moammar Gadhafi loyalists in Libya — which would be a war crime.

UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told The Associated Press on Friday there is “a serious concern” that child soldiers are among the mercenaries that Gadhafi is hiring to attack rebel forces.

The spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s agency said the mercenaries come from Chad, Niger, Central African Republic and Sudan’s Darfur region, which are all places “with known child soldiers.”

The U.N. special envoy for children in armed conflicts, Radhika Coomaraswamy, also says human rights groups and local civilians are providing unconfirmed reports that children are being killed and injured by taking up arms in Libya.

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New Book Provides Recollections of Former Liberian Child Soldiers

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University of California/Berkeley Law School’s Web Site

https://www.law.berkeley.edu/10690.htm

By Andrew Cohen

As a former television producer and humanitarian journalist with extensive experience in Africa, Emily Holland ’12 was no stranger to tales of hardship and devastation. But over the three years she and co-author Agnes Umunna worked on And Still Peace Did Not Come—which reveals haunting, personal recollections of Liberian child soldiers and their victims—Holland admits “not being fully prepared for the emotional impact of these stories.”

From 1989–1996 and 1999–2003, Liberia’s civil war killed more than 200,000 people and displaced a million more. A native Liberian now living in Staten Island, N.Y., Umunna fled to relative safety in Sierra Leone. She later returned and hosted a radio program—during which she interviewed victims, warlords, and government officials—and canvassed ghettos and slums to find former child soldiers. Read more

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Thai government urged to stop using child soldiers in militias

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Posted : Thu, 03 Mar 2011 10:08:49 GMT
Asia World News | Home

[from www.earthtimes.org]

Bangkok – The Thai government is exposing children to “significant risks” by recruiting them in the war against Muslim insurgents in the south of the country, a coalition of humanitarian non-governmental organisations alleged on Thursday.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and the Justice for Peace Foundation (JPF) said children between the ages of 9 and 17 were taking part in weapons training under the government-established Village Defence Militias, known locally by the Thai initials Chor Ror Bor.

“Children under the age of 18 are exposed to significant risks due to their association with Chor Ror Bor,” the coalition said.

“The militias are armed with a mixture of shotguns and automatic weapons,” the coalition’s Arachapon Nimitkulpon said at a press conference. “On occasions the militias are required to take part in military operations,” including searches for insurgent suspects.

Over the past four years, more than 4,000 soldiers, militia members, police, Muslim insurgents and civilians have been killed in violent incidents in Thailand’s three southernmost provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala.

The Village Defence Militias were set up in 1985 as a successor to a network of local village volunteer groups established in the 1960s to combat communist insurgents.

In a report issued Thursday, the coalition and the JPF said field research in southern Thailand in mid-2010 found children were formal members of the government militias or were performing some duties associated with militia membership in 13 of the 19 villages visited by researchers.

“They patrol the village, man checkpoints and guard sites vulnerable to attack. They may also be required to assist the local police or the military to identify suspects, including suspected members of armed groups, and on occasion are required to participate in military operations in the surrounding area,” said the report.

It called on the government to “explicitly criminalize” the use of children under 18 by the armed forces, paramilitaries and Village Defence Militias.

Coalition director Victoria Adam cited an incident in which two children were killed in a military operation.

She said evidence indicated Muslim insurgents also were using child soldiers “in a range of different scenarios and activities” related to the southern separatist insurgency.

“Children have suffered greatly because of the armed violence in the south and a more comprehensive strategy is needed to protect them,” Adam said. “Any military activity is detrimental to children.”