US signs key protocols on child rights

United States President Bill Clinton has signed two agreements advancing international efforts to eliminate abuses committed against the world’s children. The US is the fifth nation to sign these protocols, which prohibit the forcible recruitment of children for use in armed conflict and protect children from slavery, prostitution and pornography. “These two protocols form vital protections for children, and they must be signposts for the future of global society,” Clinton said at the signing ceremony at UN headquarters in New York this week. The Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography were adopted by the UN General Assembly on 25 May and opened for signature and ratification last month. The United States was hailed by UN officials and human rights groups for being one of the first countries to sign these two protocols. “This is a truly special occasion,” Deputy UN Secretary-General Louise Frechette said. “It is our hope that in due time the United States will also be able to ratify these protocols and, of course, ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.” An estimated 300,000 children are currently participating in armed conflicts in more than 30 countries. The new protocol on child soldiers establishes 18 as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment, and for any recruitment or use in hostilities by non-governmental armed groups. However, it allows government forces to accept voluntary recruits from the age of 16, subject to certain safeguards including parental permission and proof of age. The United States initially opposed this protocol, arguing that it needed to be able to deploy its 17 year-old recruits. But less than 3,000 of its 1.3 million active duty forces are under the age of 18 and the US dropped its objections during the protocol’s final round of negotiations in January this year. “Raising the US deployment age was a very reasonable concession for the Pentagon to make, considering that the numbers involved are so small,” Advocacy Director for the Child Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, Jo Becker, said. “It ensures that American troops have a greater degree of maturity. And very importantly, it sends a strong signal to other governments and forces worldwide, that children shouldn’t participate in war.”