RIGHTS: War Never Again a Child’s Territory – Protocol

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Feb 12 2002 (IPS) - The use of children as soldiers, a capital violation of human rights suffered by nearly a half million minors worldwide, will be banned as of this Tuesday, when a new international treaty enters into force.

The juridical instrument, known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, establishes that no one under 18 shall be compulsorily recruited into the ranks of armed forces.

The Protocol also imposes the requirement that governments must raise the minimum age for voluntary enlistment in military institutions to 16.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, said her office is “urging all governments and armed groups to end the military recruitment of children under 18 and to release and rehabilitate those children already in service.”

“There can no longer be any excuses for using children for war,” Robinson added.

A half-million minors serve in governmental, paramilitary and other sorts of armed forces in 85 countries around the world, says the non-governmental Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

Of that half-million, more than 300,000 participate in active combat in armed conflicts under way in more than 35 countries, according to the Coalition, founded in 1998 to mobilise international public opinion against the use of minors in war.

The participation of children in wars is comparable to the use of landmines or chemical or biological weapons: unacceptable under any circumstances, said Rory Mungoven, director of the coalition, at a press conference Monday in Geneva.

The Optional Protocol, adopted in May 2000, has been signed so far by 94 countries. Just 14 have ratified the treaty. The document enters into force after the first 10 ratifications.

Robinson urged all states not only to ratify the treaty, but also to make binding declarations ending all forms of military recruitment and participation of children under 18 years old in armed conflicts.

Mungoven criticised the slowness of the Protocol ratification process. The Coalition leader stressed that governments and armed groups that utilise children among their ranks must be rebuffed in the international arena.

The most egregious cases of child recruitment are found in Africa and Asia, though it also occurs in the Americas, Europe, and Middle East, he said.

Serious abuses of children’s rights in the combat arena are frequent in Colombia, where the insurgent Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have some 4,000 minors among their ranks, and right-wing paramilitary forces claim some 3,000, while there are several thousand more involved in urban militias.

The Coalition leader criticised British legislation that allows military recruitment as of age 16, and participation in combat at 17. Britons younger than 18 fought in the Falklands/Malvinas War (1982), the Gulf War (1991), in combat in Kosovo (1999) and in Afghanistan (2001).

Most of the minors enlisted as soldiers worldwide are 15 to 18 years old, but in many cases children as young as 10 are recruited, and at times they are even younger.

The Coalition also denounces that in many countries girls as well as boys are used as soldiers, and warns that “girls are at particular risk of rape, sexual harassment and abuse.”

“The widespread availability of modern lightweight weapons enables children to become efficient killers in combat; child soldiers are often used for special tasks, including to commit atrocities against their own families and communities,” states the non-governmental group.

However, progress has been made in recent years. Some governments and guerrilla organisations have announced the demobilisation of minors.

The political costs of using children in combat are much higher than any military advantage they might provide, Mungoven explained.

In the international sphere, the movement against the use of child soldiers has won the support of several multilateral institutions.

The recently created International Criminal Court will consider it a crime of war to use children under 15 in armed conflict.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has included the use of minors as soldiers on its list of the worst forms of child labour. The United Nation Security Council, General Assembly, and Commission on Human Rights have all condemned the practice.

The Organisation of African Unity, the Organisation of American States and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have followed suit.

The entry into force of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict is the second recent victory in favour of the consolidation of children’s rights.

On Jan 18, another Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, took effect, banning the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, aimed at protecting an estimated one million children who are victims of this sort of exploitation around the world.

The countries that have ratified the Protocol on child soldiers are Andorra, Bangladesh, Canada, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iceland, Kenya, Monaco, New Zealand, Panama, Romania, Sri Lanka, the Vatican and Vietnam.