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POLITICS: U.N. Must Protect Children in War – NGOs

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 9 2004 (IPS) - A coalition of groups is urging U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to prepare an annual list of governments and groups that recruit or use child soldiers or fail to protect children during military conflicts.

Such a regular list, it says, would keep such violators of international obligations constantly ”named and shamed”.

”From Congo and Liberia to Iraq, Myanmar and Colombia, girls and boys are subject to appalling violence and deprivation of their fundamental rights,” said the Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict in a 43-page report released Friday.

The study, which estimates 300,000 children under the age of 18 are still directly involved in armed conflicts worldwide, was released ahead of a Security Council meeting on child soldiers scheduled for Jan. 20.

It says many countries do not adequately protect children, a situation exacerbated by impeded access of civilians to much-needed humanitarian assistance in times of conflict.

As a result, says the study, ”more children die from malnutrition, diarrhoea and other preventable diseases in conflict situations than die as a direct result of fighting.”

It wants Annan to expand existing lists of violators beyond those countries and groups that use child soldiers, to include nations that do not adequately protect children.

So far, the secretary-general has compiled two lists of violators: first, countries whose conflicts are on the Security Council agenda, including Afghanistan, Burundi, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Somalia.

A second list includes the Republic of Chechnya of the Russian Federation, Colombia, Myanmar, Nepal, Northern Ireland, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.

The coalition not only wants the lists merged into one but also for the single list to be updated annually.

In most of the countries named by Annan, child soldiers are used by armed groups, not national governments.

The armed groups listed by the secretary-general include Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), the Juba Valley Alliance and Rahanwein Resistance Army in Somalia, Mai-Mai and the Union des Patriotes Congolais in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Front pour la defense de la democratie of Burundi and several factions associated with the former Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.

The coalition is demanding that these lists be ”significantly expanded”. ”We are disappointed by the limited action by the United Nations last year,” Julia Freedson of the coalition told reporters Friday.

The Watchlist coalition includes Care International, International Save the Children Alliance, Norwegian Refugee Council, Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, World Vision International and Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

Freedson said the group was particularly distressed that the Security Council did not act despite the fact that some violators were ”well known”.

According to a report released last year by the London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, these violators also include Angola, Kosovo, Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Guinea-Bissau.

Alarmingly, Freedson said, the substantial international legal framework established to protect children is failing in the most fundamental ways.

She said the current system for monitoring and reporting on violations against children in armed conflict is ”woefully inadequate”. ”The time has come for follow-up action,” Freedson added.

”The major shortcoming is that no rigorous and effective system exists to coordinate these activities, and direct them through the necessary steps to achieve the goal of compliance.”

It is also necessary to expand the spectrum of violations to include killing and maiming; rape and other grave sexual violence against children; the illicit exploitation of natural resources and the illicit trade in small arms, Andrew Johnson of the International Save the Children Alliance, told reporters.

Kathleen Hunt of Care International called for tighter measures and time-bound plans to fight the recruitment of child soldiers.

”We are not saying it has to stop by midnight,” she said, pointing out that the United Nations should follow up on assurances given by armed groups and governments not to use child soldiers.

In Sri Lanka, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which has been battling a separatist war in the northeast of that country, has a long record of using child soldiers and of breaking commitments to stop, according to the Sri Lanka government.

In a list of recommendations to the Security Council, the coalition ”strongly urges” all 191 member states to end immediately all sales of arms and military assistance to parties that violate international law and recruit child soldiers.

It is also calling for specific deadlines by which parties must submit information on the steps they are taking to end children recruitment and use in conflicts, and the creation of concrete, time-bound plans to end these abuses.

Annan was asked to establish a task force on compliance and follow-up, which would include representatives of the United Nations, U.N. agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

”One way for the Security Council to start making significant progress would be by concentrating its efforts on a single conflict situation or region where egregious abuses have been repeatedly documented,” the report said.

This would help test and refine mechanisms for gathering crucial information for the Council’s use, tighten coordination among various agencies, and test the effectiveness of graduated remedies.

The 1990 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) set the legal minimum age for recruitment of soldiers at 15. But an optional protocol to the CRC, which came into force in 2003, outlaws the involvement of children under 18 in any hostilities, and sets strict standards for the recruitment of those under 18.