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International Will
Can Eliminate Child Soldiers
by M.R. Narayan Swamy
New Delhi, Dec 31 (IANS) Child soldiers number around 300,000 around
the world, encompassing almost all the continents, and like slavery
this problem too can be ended if there is international will,
asserts a top UN official.
Radhika Coomaraswamy explained in an email interview that this is
the only human rights issue the UN Security Council has taken up and
the parties that recruit and use children in war will "with time
face targeted measures".
Asked whether the menace of children fighting wars can ever end, she
told IANS: "Yes, it can be eradicated. Like slavery if there is
concerted international action it can be eradicated."
A Sri Lankan, Coomaraswamy is the Special Representative of the UN
Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict. A graduate from
Yale and a Masters in Law from Harvard, she was the UN Special
Rapporteur or Independent Expert on Violence Against Women from 1994
to 2003.
She said
the first thing to do would be to combat impunity and punish
perpetrators.
"This is done though the ICC (International Criminal Court) and may
occur under Security Council Resolution 1612," she said. "We hope
this will send a signal and defer future leaders from engaging child
soldiers.
"Secondly, we are monitoring the situation. This is the only human
rights issue that has been taken up by the Security Council. Parties
that recruit and use children are named and with time will face
targeted measures."
Coomaraswamy said the widely quoted figure for the number of child
soldiers worldwide was 300,000. They fought wars in Africa, Asia and
South America and even in Europe.
Anyone under 18 is considered a child under the Convention on the
Rights of the Child. However, the age is 15 for convictions for
recruiting and using children as a war crime or crime against
humanity under the ICC mandate.
Asked about her country Sri Lanka, she said both the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and its breakaway faction led by Karuna
recruited children though the LTTE "is a repeat offender having been
on the Security Council shame list for four years".
Coomaraswamy said her Special Adviser to Sri Lanka, Alan Rock,
recently visited Sri Lanka and reported that there were allegations
that "rogue elements of the security forces have also been helping
the Karuna faction" and that President Mahinda Rajapakse had agreed
to probe the matter.
She added: "After Rock's visit, Karuna called and spoke with me
through an intermediary. Though he denied a conscious policy of
recruiting children, he agreed to work with Unicef to secure the
release of children listed taken by his commanders (as listed in
Unicef database). This is a major step forward. We hope LTTE will
also open its camps for verification."
Coomaraswamy has come under attack in the past from sections of
Tamils and the Sri Lankan government for her stand on child
soldiers.
She said that in general many children were abducted to join rebel
armies while others signed up on their own "because they have no
other option of survival and they are seduced by the glamour of
being a soldier. Others join for revenge or because they believe in
an ideology." In some cases, parents bartered them, with rebels, for
benefits.
"Insurgent groups recruit child soldiers because they need manpower
and with the proliferation of small arms, children can now carry and
use weapons."
Generally, Coomaraswamy went on, child soldiers came from poor
families, from the same ethnic group as the recruiter and lived in
places where there was "no security, where schooling is disturbed
and where there are no normal livelihood options".
Psychologists believe that children make great fighters, she said.
"They are often fearless. However, having met child soldiers, it is
a tragic situation. One moment they are armed men and ruthless
killers, the next moment they cry and play like little children.
Nothing will affect you more than speaking with young child
soldiers."
Asked about the difference between a child soldier and a child
domestic worker, Coomaraswamy explained: "Child soldiers face
imminent death and direct violence at a young age. This creates a
whole host of chronic psychosocial problems. Child labor is less
immediate but can also be harmful. Poverty is a cause of both but
not all poor societies recruit children as combatants."
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