UNICEF on child soldiers

The recruitment of child soldiers, a practice that has been sharply criticised in recent years, may reoccur in Sierra Leone given the current security crisis, the head of UNICEF in that country, Joanna Van Gerpen, said on Wednesday.

“The very high level of instability could lead us back into the vicious cycle where children are used as tools of war,” she said.

Leaders of Sierra Leone’s pro-government militia and national army had, she said, disavowed the recruitment of children as soldiers although Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel leader Foday Sankoh had not gone on record as making this commitment.

She said RUF leaders in the northern town of Makeni last week remobilised at least 40 former child soldiers and attempted to re-enlist more. The action came in the same week that the rebels detained some 500 UN troops.

UNICEF estimates that during the nine-year civil war some 5,000 children - mostly boys - were used as combatants. Thousands of other boys and girls became wood gatherers, cooks, sex slaves or porters for the combatants. Van Gerpen said she was concerned that efforts to normalise life for hundreds of thousands of children in the country could be unravelling.

UNICEF says it provides close to US $2 million each year in cash and technical support to care centres for former child combatants. At these facilities, the children receive counselling, education, recreation and skills training while their families are traced.

The current instability has led to the postponement of the third round of a nationwide immunisation campaign, due 21-22 May, against polio, Van Gerpen said. “The last thing this country needs is a return to violence. A whole generation of children has already been emotionally traumatised and physically scarred,” she said.