AFRICA: Pressure mounts to prevent the use of child soldiers

The conflicts that continue to scar Africa victimise all its people, but among the most severely affected are the most vulnerable group in societies -- children. The impact of war not only impoverishes and destroys their childhood, but increasingly they are direct participants, conscripted to fight by government armies or rebel groups. There are an estimated 300,000 boys and girls under arms around the world some 120,000 of them are in Africa. A conference in Maputo, Mozambique this week aims to build regional coalitions to mobilise support for the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, raising the minimum age of military recruitment from 15 to 18 years and ensuring the demobilisation of all child soldiers. The process is to culminate in an international conference next year in an attempt to gather the necessary political will to overcome opposition by key UN member states to the Optional Protocol. The 19-22 April Maputo conference, organised by the international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, is the first step in the international campaign. It has brought together African governments and NGOs to address the issue of children in combat and to ensure support for the Optional Protocol. In terms of legal instruments, Africa as a region has gone further than most with an OAU Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child agreed, which sets 18 years as the minimum age for soldiers. Thirteen countries have so far ratified out of the 15 necessary for it to come into force. But on the ground, with the proliferation of rebel forces across the continent and the fragility of states and institutions, implementing the Charter in practice seems a long way off. However, Rachel Brett of the Quaker UN office in Geneva points out that not all current conflicts in Africa use child soldiers and their involvement is not inevitable.Children tend to be more readily used in internal wars, or enduring conflicts which have absorbed available adult recruits, and in conditions where cross-border refugee camps provide a reservoir for new combatants. The general lack of identity documents even can make the non-intentional drafting of children into military units a problem. But child soldiers are key recruits, typically for rebel movements, in for example Uganda, Sudan and Sierra Leone. They are regarded as easily indoctrinated and obedient soldiers. Modern light weapons make them just as deadly as adult fighters. And when children are not being deliberately kidnapped and coerced, many see no other alternative given the conditions of war in their countries but to volunteer for service although brutal circumstances leaves little room for genuine choice, coalition report says. In most cases of children who have joined opposition forces, the single major factor is ill-treatment of themselves or their families, and here the lesson for governments engaged in internal repression is clear, the report adds. Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict describes conflict situations as the crisis of the youth in which children frequently end up being at both ends of the gun, both being brutalised in a violent free-for-all in which traditional value systems and injunctions governing warfare have been eroded. He told the conference that even in internal conflicts involving non-state actors, the international community has a role to play in enforcing norms and preventing exploitation. There are trails into these theatres of conflict and out, he said. None of them [rebel groups] can ignore concerted pressure and concern. He also stressed the need for adequate donor support in post-conflict reconstruction to avoid the situation of demobilised child soldiers being recycled in renewed conflicts. George Okoth-Obbo, a UNHCR policy officer for southern Africa, urged international disincentives for governments and rebel groups using child soldiers. But he also pointed out that general accountability and human rights protection within individual countries needed to go hand- in-hand with the construction of an effective international regime for the protection of children.