Kabila orders demobilisation of child soldiers

DRC President Joseph Kabila has launched a national campaign to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers and to prepare for their demobilisation from the Congolese army and their reintegration into society, UNICEF announced on Thursday. The initiative, which has the financial support of UNICEF, seeks to prohibit all children under 18 years of age from being sent to the frontline and from being involved in any purely military task, such as the handling of weapons. Addressing a UNICEF seminar on child soldiers in Kinshasa, Kabila ordered that these instructions be disseminated throughout the Forces armees congolaises (FAC). Kabila also took the opportunity to call on all rebel signatories to the Lusaka Accord to end their transboundary recruitment of children, as well as to cease the exploitation of the DRC’s natural resources. Earlier this month, the DRC signed and ratified an amendment to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -which calls for an end to the use of child soldiers in war - thereby becoming the fifth country in the world to ratify this protocol. UNICEF estimates there are some 8,000 to 12,000 child soldiers throughout the entirety of the DRC.