CHILD SOLDIERS

1
(No Transcript)
2
CHILD SOLDIERS

• RATIFICATION AS RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHTS, WORTH,
  AND DIGNITY OF THE CHILD

3
FACTS AND FIGURES

• 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are
  currently participating in armed conflicts,
  120,000 of whom are in Africa.
• Child soldiers are recruited in more than forty
  different countries on nearly every continent.
• 1.5 million children dead 4 million disabled or
  maimed in conflicts.
• While most child soldiers are in their teens,
  some are as young as seven years old.

4
OBJECTIVES

• Introduce the notion of the child soldier by
  illustrating the reasons for their widespread
  recruitment
• Survey the treatment of those who are recruited
• Lay out the legal framework pertaining to
  children recruited into armed combat
• Advocate greater ratification of major
  legislation underscoring the rights of the child

5
REASONS FOR CHILD RECRUITMENT

• Cheap assistancechildren do not demand salaries
  as adults do
• Children less likely to run away during long,
  drawn-out conflicts
• Regarded as more expendable than adult
  counterparts
• Easier to condition into fearless killing and
  unthinking obedience
• Proliferation of light weapons that are easily
  manipulated and assembled by children

6
TREATMENT OF CHILD SOLDIERS

• Brutal initiations involving cannibalism
• Used as human shields
• Girls raped, physically abused, made sex slaves
• Abducted, marched to physical exhaustion,
  tortured, beaten, and abused, then forced to do
  the same to family and members of community
• Held in virtual slavery in clandestine camps,
  serving as guards, concubines, and soldiers

7
UN CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

• States Parties shall take all feasible measures
  to ensure that persons who have not attained the
  age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in
  hostilities.
• States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any
  person who has not attained the age of fifteen
  years into their armed forces.
• States Parties undertake to respect and to ensure
  respect for rules of international humanitarian
  law applicable to them in armed conflicts which
  are relevant to the child.

8
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF CHILDREN
IN ARMED CONFLICT

• States Parties shall take all feasible measures
  to ensure that members of their armed forces who
  have not attained the age of 18 years do not take
  a direct part in hostilities.
• States Parties shall ensure that persons who have
  not attained the age of 18 years are not
  compulsorily recruited into their armed forces.
• States Parties shall raise in years the minimum
  age for the voluntary recruitment of persons into
  their national armed forces.

9
RATIFICATION OF THE UN CONVENTION AND THE
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL

• Ratified by 191 countries
• Only two countries have not ratified the United
  States, which has signaled its intention to
  ratify by formally signing the Convention, and
  Somalia.
• The Optional Protocol on the involvement of
  children in armed conflict will enter into force
  on 12 February.
• To date, 93 countries have signed and 13 have
  ratified this Protocol.

10
RATIFICATIONA JOINT U.S.-SOMALIA VENTURE

• The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the
  most widely and rapidly ratified human rights
  treaty in history.
• Somalia and the United States are obliged to
  ratify the Convention.
• Pressure must be placed on both countries to
  facilitate ratification through cooperation among
  human rights organizations, peace and conflict
  research institutes, academicians, governments,
  and INDIVIDUALS.
• The world must embrace the Optional Protocol.

11
WEBSITE