Child soldiers still being recruited in the east

Children are routinely being recruited or forced into service in eastern DRC by the rebel Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD) and other parties to the conflict, the NGO Refugees International reported on Monday. The latest emphasis in the RCD was on “social mobilisation programmes” through local authorities and radio programmes to entice young men and boys into the army and local defence militias, it said. The motives for children volunteering included grinding poverty, food scarcity, unemployment, an absence of educational opportunities and a naive sense of adventure, it added. While recruits are unlikely to be paid, they are usually fed and able to use the weapons they are issued with to extort food and other goods, according to the report. “Forced recruitment, prevalent in towns a few months ago, has not ceased but, following [the] local and international outcry against it, the focus has shifted to less visible rural areas,” it said. Though that outcry had made recruiters more careful - or covert - and armies in the east had made some token gestures on demobilisation, the evidence suggested that “no army or militia in the continuing conflict in the Congo has refrained from recruiting child soldiers”, Refugees International stated. The agency recommended that the UN, donors and NGOs “form a united front to denounce the recruitment and use of child soldiers”, that resources be made available for local activists tracing missing children, and that larger reintegration programmes be established for former child soldiers, including follow-up to ensure they were not re-recruited. At a more general level, it said, the international community should “make clear to all parties, including the foreign countries involved in the conflict, that repect for human rights, including the rights of children, is an important determinant of international legitimacy and participation”.