CONFLICT: NGOs Launch Global Campaign to Ban Child Soldiers

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 30 1998 (IPS) - A coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is spearheading a new global campaign to ban the use of child soldiers in military conflicts.

“With public pressure and political will, we can stop this reprehensible practice,” says Jo Becker, chairs of the ‘Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers’, which launched its latest campaign here Tuesday.

“Children should not be used to fight adult wars,” says Becker, pointing out that 44 countries recruit children under the age of 18 to serve in their national armies.

The 44 include the United States, Britain, Israel, Australia, Italy, Japan, Germany, Canada, Brazil, Greece, Poland, Mexico, Pakistan, India, Namibia, the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Cuba. However, not all these countries permit under-18s to participate in combat.

The coalition includes leading organisations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Save the Children, and the Jesuit Refugee Service. It is planning to replicate last year’s highly successful NGO campaign for a treaty banning anti-personnel landmines. The ‘International Campaign to Ban Landmines’, a coalition of more than 700 NGOs, went on to win the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

Working in close cooperation with key U.N. agencies, the new coalition also will campaign for an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child banning the recruitment of children younger than 18.

“The use of children in waging war violates every existing standard of civilised human behaviour,” says Stephen Lewis, Deputy Executive Director of the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

“The international community can dilly-dally no longer: we must take action. The starting point is clearly a universal ban on military recruitment of any kind – voluntary or obligatory – under the age of 18,” Lewis asserts.

Emilio Hernandez-Xicara, who was forcibly recruited to fight in the Guatemalan army at age 14, told reporters that his life was an absolute nightmare. “We were constantly beaten, mostly for no reason at all, just to keep us in a state of terror.”

“They forced me to learn how to fight the enemy in a war that I didn’t understand,” he adds, speaking in Spanish.

Children forced to fight should be granted political asylum outside their countries, Becker says, citing instances in which Guatemalan child soldiers have been granted asylum in the United States. Hernandez-Xicara’s application is still pending, she adds.

There are between 300,000 and 500,000 child soldiers worldwide fighting for national armies as well as armed groups, according to the United Nations. Current intentional standards allow children as young as 15 to be recruited and the United States is listed among countries opposed to raising the minimum age to 18.

Since 1994, a U.N. ‘Working Group’ has been trying to develop new international standards that would protect children from the horrors of war. The group has been pushing for an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which would raise the minimum age for military recruitment to 18 years of age.

New York-based Human Rights Watch says the United States is the only major power that has refused to accept 18 as the minimum age for participation in hostilities.

“Unfortunately, the United States has single-handedly blocked progress on this critical effort,” Becker says, noting the irony of U.S. opposition to a protocol in a convention which Washington so far has not ratified. Washington’s failure to ratify, she adds, places it in a group with Somalia.

Last year, the United States expressed strong reservations on a U.N. General Assembly resolution calling for an end to the use of children in national armies.

U.S. Ambassador Seth Winnick told delegates that for more than 50 years, the U.S. had permitted voluntary enlistment in the armed forces at 17 years of age, with parental consent. Therefore, it did not anticipate any changes to its law or practices in that area.

Since the U.N. Working Group takes decisions only by consensus, all participating nations must be in unanimous agreement on the wording of the draft protocol. The United States alone has said that it would refuse to accept a consensus stipulating 18 years as the minimum age for recruitment.