Tag Archive for: Child Soldiers

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New Report on Children and Armed Conflict — The Use of Child Soldiers

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CLC’s Sydney Greenberger

July 23, 2024

By Sydney Greenberger, CLC

 

A 16-year-old is forced to join an armed group on his walk to school. Girls are kidnapped into being “wives” for soldiers. Children are visited by recruiters at schools and pressured to join the war effort. Otherwise, they are regarded as unpatriotic.

On June 3, 2024, the UN Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) released its annual report. This disturbing report details the terrible treatment of children who are forced into either fighting themselves in wars or being forced to support their governments in various ways when they are at war.

On June 26, the UN Security Council held its annual open debate on children and armed conflict in New York. There, the council discussed the CAAC and heard the personal testimony of a former child soldier from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He explained that some children were forced to join armed groups, and others were abducted to hold their families to ransom. The head of the UN Security Council needs to protect children affected by conflict, helping them gain access to education and healthcare, and protecting them from living in environments where their rights are violated.

February 2002 marked the release of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which aims to eliminate the recruitment and use of children in war. The Optional Protocol requires that governments ensure children under the age of 18 are not forcibly recruited to the armed forces and requires them to prevent children from taking a direct part in the hostilities of war. The protocol has been ratified by 173 countries, including the United States.

Some governments in violation of the treaty were forced to demobilize their child soldiers, prosecute officers who recruited children, and change their deployment practices. Although the treaty has been in effect for over two decades, child soldier recruitment and engagement in conflict continues to occur in many places around the world.

The 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act (CSPA) allows the U.S. government to restrict arms sales and military assistance to countries whose security forces or government-supported armed groups recruited or used child soldiers in the previous year. Since the U.S. is the top arms exporter in the world, the CSPA creates an incentive for countries to put an end to the recruitment and use of child soldiers if they want American assistance.

Between 2005 and 2022, more than 105,000 children were verified as recruited by armed groups in their communities, with some being as young as 8 years old. The actual number is believed to be much higher. Yearly, thousands of children are used as soldiers, cooks, and spies, among other roles, in armed conflict around the globe.

There are a variety of reasons why children might become part of an armed group. Limited educational or employment opportunities and poverty can increase the pool of available children and motivate them to volunteer for armed groups. Children might be abducted, threatened, coerced, or manipulated by a member of the group. Children may believe they must associate with an armed group to survive. Children who come from impoverished families may join armed groups to generate income. Regardless of why a child becomes a member of an armed group, the recruitment and use of children by armed forces is a violation of child rights and international humanitarian law.

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Ending the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers

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By Katarzyna Rybarczyk

Katarzyna Rybarczyk

Around the world children as young as ten years old fight in armed conflicts. According to the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, adopted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1999, recruiting children as soldiers is one of the worst forms of child labour. Despite the practice representing a horrendous violation of their fundamental rights, however, currently, more than 300,000 children are members of armed groups and forces.

After being recruited by abduction or coercion, children are terrorised into obedience and deployed in direct combat, or assigned support and logistical roles. The recruitment of children under eighteen is forbidden by international law, but regardless the crime thrives in several regions of the world ravaged by war.

The UN’s Children and armed conflict report, released in June 2019, identified twenty countries where cases of child recruitment as soldiers have been verified. The report named the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Nigeria, the Syrian Arab Republic and Yemen as the states where the problem is the most serious. Amongst them, the highest number of conscripted children could be observed in Somalia with 2,300 child soldiers, followed by Nigeria with 1,947 of them.

Methods of Recruitment

In countries where law enforcement is poor and the political situation unstable, children are vulnerable to forced recruitment. The majority of child soldiers is recruited by non-state extremist groups, which deceive the youth by showing them false images of prosperity and happiness within the organisations’ ranks. These groups specifically target and indoctrinate children because they are easy to manipulate and control.

In societies where children are being recruited as soldiers, they and their families often live in poverty. Lured by the promises of good salaries in militant groups, children volunteer to join to help their loved ones. On top of that, tired of living in conflict zones, children sometimes think that joining armed groups will provide them with shelter, protection and safety. Often, they become child soldiers to escape maltreatment at home or abuses by state’s forces.

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10 Facts about Child Soldiers…

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Boys play with a wooden gun used in re-enactment dramas, which can be part of rehabilitation therapy sessions. Many are familiar with how to handle the weapon. Photographs from World Vision’s Children of War Rehabilitation Center in Gulu: daily life under World Vision’s care and reunions with their families; portraits to accompany Nigel Marsh interviews. Please refer to Nigel Marsh Scribe stories and to the Winter 2005 WVUS magazine cover story. Used in Winter 2005 World Vision Magazine - Pg. 12-13 Africa digital color horizontal

Boys play with a wooden gun used in re-enactment dramas, which can be part of rehabilitation therapy sessions. Courtesy of World Vision

  • How do you define a ‘child soldier’? The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child (1990) defined childhood as under 18 years of age. In 1997 an International conference in Cape Town adopted the definition, “any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity…” A key 2nd Conference in Paris 2007[1] concluded with a definition of, “any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.”
  • The Child Soldiers Global Report 2001 of the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers estimated there are 300,000-plus child soldiers at any point in time[2]. Forty percent of those are thought to be girls[3]. Most are aged between 13-17 years, but they are accounts of children as young as 7.
  • Why do they join how do they become child soldiers? Many children are forcible recruited and brain washed. Children are cheap requiring less pay and food, available in times of conflict when schools, homes and other places of infrastructure are destroyed, convenient as they are teachable and vulnerable to both political persuasion and violence – particularly when their primary care giver is threatened, violated or killed.
  • We often view this as a human rights issue, but is it a peace issue? War intensifies poverty and poverty reduces or destroys the power of choice and increases vulnerability to extreme political agenda. Quickly the gap between an active civilian life and one of organized violence is bridged.
  • How do children evolve from being normal, moral children to brutal soldiers able to carry out atrocities? The training varies across geographical areas, but common threads include a baptism of fire approach into a culture of violence, fueling a culture of control and obedience that is often rewarded by greater access to food or health care for example. Isolation increases the culture of fear amongst the children and unquestioning obedience. Following orders is rewarded by the protection of ones life. An encouragement to devalue and dehumanize the enemy creates the ability for commanders to lead the children in to a ‘new moral space[4]’ where the rules are totally different and following them is the only thing that guarantees their protection. Over time most children adapt to their new set of values and often when this is paired with a political awakening to explain their poverty this becomes a compelling motivation for committing violence.
  • Geographically the issue is global. All states should have an interest in the protection of children from recruitment as child soldiers. From Angola, to the DRC, to Colombia, to Afghanistan, to Indonesia, to Nepal, to Russia, to Iran and to the Sudan to name but a few – every continent has at some point been affected.
  • The implementation of national Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programs following the end of armed conflict involves soldiers turning in their weapons, the formal disbanding of military groups including the surrender of uniforms and the release of combatants and finally the longer term process of reintegration to civilian life, finding viable roles for former soldiers and places of education. These programs are as necessary for children as adult soldiers. More tailor-made programs are require and a greater sharing of knowledge of effective programs would radically increase their success.
  • Attacking poverty is critically important. Lack of educational and vocational opportunity is a major contributory factor for children remaining with their role and identity as a soldier. Continuing as a child soldier provides them with an infrastructure within which to be fed and survive.
  • What can be done to protect vulnerable children? Prevention and protection must be sought and struggled for. Global campaigns to strengthen child protection must be pursued. Research that identifies effective DDR programs must be conducted. Strengthening the International Criminal Court and its ability to prosecute child recruiters; building into international peace agreements provision for children’s DDRs and preventing further recruitment and penalties administered by the UN Security Council on countries that trade weapons with countries that exploit children as soldiers are also critical to solving this problem.
  • How can we increase the effectiveness of intervention programs? We can do a better job of gathering success stories of prevention and rehabilitation and disseminating them. There are some incredible stories of success from which we can take courage and continue to move forward with hope and purpose.

Footnotes:

[1] Co-hosted by UNICEF and the French Government.

[2] Child Soldiers, From Violence to Protection, Michael Wessells, Harvard Press. Page 9.

[3] Save The Children UK 2005.

[4] Child Soldiers, From Violence to Protection, Michael Wessells, Harvard Press. Page 65.

This list was compiled by CLC Contributing Writer Deborah Andrews.

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Today is the Day to Think about the Plight of the World’s 300,000 Child Soldiers

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Today is an important day if you care about the welfare of children. Advocates have named February 12 “International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers” to highlight one of the worst forms of child labor. It’s hard to imagine that in 2013 the use of child soldiers is alive and thriving, but the BBC estimates that there are 300,000 child soldiers internationally. This number includes children of elementary school age who are handed automatic weapons and asked to kill, as well as others who are used for slave labor to support armies. Since January 2011, child soldiers have been used in at least 19 countries.

Many of the children suffer the worst forms of psychological warfare from their captors, who in many cases break them down by forcing them to kill or maim their friends or family. Many girls are sexually assaulted and forced to serve as sexual slaves. Many child victims are given drugs to keep them compliant. Their years of enforced service often produce intense psychological scarring that makes it hard to return to their communities. In some cases, they are shunned by their villages. Hear one girl’s compelling story in this YouTube video.

The Child Labor Coalition has tracked dozens of stories regarding the use of child soldiers over the last year and engages with its members to perform advocacy to reduce the use of child soldiers. Most recently, the warfare in Mali led to the recruitment of child soldiers, including children as young as 12. In early January, the United Nations decried the use of child soldiers in the Central African Republic, and in India, reports emerged that the militant group, the Garo National Liberation Army was using children in a variety of roles to support combat, including possibly the use of armed children. In early December, 2012, the U.S. government imposed sanctions on two “March 23 (M23)” leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for allegedly using child soldiers.

Not all the news has been bad. In June 2012, Burma made significant strides in reducing its use of child soldiers when it released an action plan to tackle the problem. In 2012, Yemeni authorities said they were committed to stopping the use of children in the military.

The challenges governments face to end the use of child soldiers are often formidable, however. A February 6th Huffington Post blog by Jake Scobey-Thal noted that despite some progress, child soldiers are still being used in Burma and cited the International Labour Organization that their numbers may be as high as 5,000.

Two members of the Child Labor Coalition, World Vision and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have been leaders in the effort to pressure the US government into abiding by a congressional law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits military aid to countries that use child soldiers. They’ve also provided a valuable service with early warnings when civil strife reaches the point that children begin to be dragged into military conflicts as they have been recently in Mali, Syria and the DRC.

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Human Rights Watch’s Jo Becker: The U.S. Can Do More to Keep Children Off the Battlefield

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[This blog originally appeared on the Huffington Post on 10/04/2012]

President Barack Obama announced on Friday that, for the second year in a row, it was withholding portions of U.S. military assistance from the Democratic Republic of Congo because of its continued use of child soldiers. The U.S. also said it wouldn’t train a Congolese light infantry battalion until Congo signed an action plan with the United Nations to end its use of child soldiers. U.S. officials have repeatedly urged the Congolese government to address the issue.

The pressure seems to be working. After seven years of foot-dragging, today Congo finally signed the U.N. plan, which will require Congo to end child recruitment, demobilize children in its forces and allow U.N. verification visits to its barracks.

For years, Congo has ranked among the worst countries for child soldiers. At the height of the conflict there, the U.N. estimated that as many as 30,000 children were participating in the war. Today, hundreds each year are still recruited in eastern Congo, by both government and rebel forces. Children who have escaped or been released often fear they will be forced into service again.

The U.S. has withheld assistance from Congo under a landmark law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, which prohibits U.S. military assistance to governments using child soldiers. In contrast it has, often on national security grounds, allowed other governments using child soldiers to continue receiving such aid, without conditions. Three examples — Chad, South Sudan and Yemen — show how the U.S. has missed opportunities to protect children from military service.

In Chad, government and rebel forces recruited thousands of children in a proxy war with Sudan that ended in early 2010. With U.S. pressure, the Chadian government signed a U.N. action plan in June 2011 to end child recruitment and demobilize all children from its forces. Child recruitment significantly dropped, with no new cases recorded in 2011. In June, the U.S. took Chad off its list of countries subject to possible sanctions under the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, despite reports that children remained in Chad’s forces.

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Burma/Myanmar Releases 42 Child Soldiers, Vows to End Practice

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September 05, 2012 [from Voice of America]

The Burmese military has released 42 child soldiers from its ranks, as part of efforts to end the recruitment of underage fighters in the Southeast Asian country.

The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper says army officials handed the children over to their parents and guardians at a ceremony in Rangoon on Monday.

The newspaper says Burmese officials also have vowed to rid the armed forces of all child soldiers within 18 months, in accordance with a United Nations agreement signed in June.

The U.N. says at least eight other armed groups, apart from the government armed forces, recruit and use child soldiers in Burma, including several rebel and separatist groups.

Since taking power last year, Burma’s nominally civilian government has undertaken several reforms, including easing media restrictions, allowing more freedom to opposition groups, and releasing hundreds of political prisoners.

But rights groups and activists have said that, despite the political and economic reforms, there have been no significant changes in human rights abuses carried out by Burma’s military, particularly in rebel-dominated areas.

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Sudan: Country Dismisses U.S. Report on Human Rights Violation

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[from AllAfrica.com]

Juba — The government of South Sudan has strongly denounced the US department of states report on human rights on the country and instead reiterated its commitment to protect the fundamental human rights of citizens in the word’s newest nation.

A report released by the US Bureau of Democracy, Human Right and Labor pins documents a series of extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and other inhumane treatment of civilians that allegedly occurred in South Sudan between January to December 2011.

Approximately 250,000 people, it says, were displaced as a result of the conflict reportedly emanating from fighting between South Sudan army (SPLA) and Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), clashes with renegade militia groups or cattle-related disputes among communities. Read more

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DR Congo: Hoping for a Brighter Future

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By Christian Kilundu [from World Vision—A CLC member]

He was in primary school when he first met the rebels. They arrived and promised big salaries. The poverty and insecurity the children lived in could be escaped, they swore.

Of course, once inside the rebel group, life wasn’t as it was promised.

In the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), rebels continue to recruit children into their fighting parties as a war continues to unfold against the country’s army. In the 15 years of fighting, an estimated 5 million people have been killed, and more than 1.7 million have fled the area.

Boys who are not yet teenagers have been lured into the rebel groups and are used to carry ammunition, food and other supplies before graduating to other activities.

Below, one child recounts his experience inside the rebel armies and his attempt to return to a normal childhood.

“I am Dragon Mike*, I am 17 years old and a former child soldier. Read more

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Sudan’s Lost Boys: Our Hopes for a New Country

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When South Sudan was created as an independent country in July, it offered a new hope and possibilities for a whole generation whose childhood was blighted by civil war.

Among the victims of Sudan’s conflict were 27,000 boys orphaned by the fighting. Known as the Lost Boys, some were forced to fight as child soldiers, while others fled and became refugees.

An estimated 1.5 million people were killed and another four million were displaced in what became Africa’s longest-running conflict.

The refugees fled to camps in Ethiopia and other neighbouring countries. It was a dangerous journey – many drowned or died from hunger. Others were killed by wild animals. Some of those who survived ended up far away, in countries such as the US. Read more

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Darfurian Armed Group Commits to Not Using Child Soliders

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Thursday, 6 October 2011, 1:23 pm
Source: UN News

Darfurian Armed Group Makes Commitment to UN to Stop Using Child Soldiers

New York, Oct 5 2011 – A faction of one of the armed groups in Darfur has agreed to prohibit the use of child soldiers in its ranks after discussions with the joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Sudanese region (UNAMID), the mission reported today.

The Sudan Liberation Army’s Historical Leadership, a breakaway group of the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdel Wahid (SLA/Abdel Wahid), submitted an action plan to the UN through Ibrahim Gambari, the AU-UN Joint Special Representative and head of UNAMID, on 25 September committing to end recruitment and use of child soldiers in compliance with Security Council resolutions on children and armed conflict.

The group’s leader, Usman Musa, had in August issued a command order to his faction’s members to stop “recruiting and using children in the ranks of the movement.” His order also prohibited attacks on schools and hospitals and “all behaviour that leads to abuse and violence against children, including sexual abuse and forced marriage.”

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