Download CHILD SOLDIERS

CHILD SOLDIERS
RATIFICATION AS
RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHTS,
WORTH, AND DIGNITY OF THE
CHILD
FACTS AND FIGURES
• 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are
currently participating in armed conflicts, 120,000
of whom are in Africa.
• Child soldiers are recruited in more than forty
different countries on nearly every continent.
• 1.5 million children dead; 4 million disabled or
maimed in conflicts.
• While most child soldiers are in their teens, some
are as young as seven years old.
OBJECTIVES
• Introduce the notion of the “child soldier” by
illustrating the reasons for their widespread
recruitment
• Survey the treatment of those who are “recruited”
• Lay out the legal framework pertaining to children
recruited into armed combat
• Advocate greater ratification of major legislation
underscoring the rights of the child
REASONS FOR CHILD
RECRUITMENT
• Cheap assistance—children do not demand
salaries as adults do
• Children less likely to run away during long,
drawn-out conflicts
• Regarded as more expendable than adult
counterparts
• Easier to condition into fearless killing and
unthinking obedience
• Proliferation of light weapons that are easily
manipulated and assembled by children
TREATMENT OF CHILD
SOLDIERS
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Brutal initiations involving cannibalism
Used as human shields
Girls raped, physically abused, made sex slaves
Abducted, marched to physical exhaustion,
tortured, beaten, and abused, then forced to do the
same to family and members of community
• Held in virtual slavery in clandestine camps,
serving as guards, concubines, and soldiers
UN CONVENTION ON THE
RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
• States Parties shall take all feasible measures to
ensure that persons who have not attained the age
of fifteen years do not take a direct part in
hostilities.
• States Parties shall refrain from recruiting any
person who has not attained the age of fifteen
years into their armed forces.
• States Parties undertake to respect and to ensure
respect for rules of international humanitarian law
applicable to them in armed conflicts which are
relevant to the child.
OPTIONAL PROTOCOL ON THE INVOLVEMENT OF
CHILDREN IN ARMED CONFLICT
• States Parties shall take all feasible measures to
ensure that members of their armed forces who
have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a
direct part in hostilities.
• States Parties shall ensure that persons who have
not attained the age of 18 years are not
compulsorily recruited into their armed forces.
• States Parties shall raise in years the minimum age
for the voluntary recruitment of persons into their
national armed forces.
RATIFICATION OF THE UN CONVENTION
AND THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL
• Ratified by 191 countries
• Only two countries have not ratified: the United
States, which has signaled its intention to ratify by
formally signing the Convention, and Somalia.
• The Optional Protocol on the involvement of
children in armed conflict will enter into force on
12 February.
• To date, 93 countries have signed and 13 have
ratified this Protocol.
RATIFICATION—A JOINT U.S.SOMALIA VENTURE
• The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the
most widely and rapidly ratified human rights
treaty in history.
• Somalia and the United States are obliged to ratify
the Convention.
• Pressure must be placed on both countries to
facilitate ratification through cooperation among
human rights organizations, peace and conflict
research institutes, academicians, governments,
and INDIVIDUALS.
• The world must embrace the Optional Protocol.
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