CHILD SOLDIERS

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CHILD SOLDIERS

• RATIFICATION AS RECOGNITION OF THE RIGHTS, WORTH,
  AND DIGNITY OF THE CHILD

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Child Soldiers Who is a child soldier?

• Any child girl or boy under the age of 18,
• who is part of any kind of regular or irregular
• armed force or armed group, including but
• not limited to combatants, cooks, porters,
• messengers, and anyone accompanying
• such groups other than as family members. This
  includes girls and boys recruited for sexual
  purposes and/or forced marriage (UNICEF).

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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.

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Child Soldiers Where are child soldiers?
Children at War Around the World
Source UN
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Child Soldiers What do you know?

• During what years of your life are you considered
  a child?
• How many countries would you guess use child
  soldiers in todays world? A few? A lot?
• Why would an army want to use child soldiers?
• Can children be accepted into the United States
  Armed Forces?

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REASONS FOR CHILD RECRUITMENT

• Cheap assistancechildren 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

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Child Soldiers Which children are affected?

• Children in extreme poverty who are desperate for
  food and shelter.
• Children without identification papers.
• Orphans and children with weak family structures.
• Children living in refugee camps or conflict
  zones.

Source UN
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TREATMENT OF CHILD SOLDIERS

• 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

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Child Soldiers What do child soldiers do?

• Child soldiers often fight on the front lines of
  conflict.
• They serve as scouts, spies, trainers, saboteurs,
  decoys, couriers, guards, and landmine clearers.
• Child soldiers also work indirectly as porters
  and domestic servants.
• Girl soldiers are often used as sexual
• slaves or are given as rewards to
• male soldiers as wives.

Source MSNBC
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Child Soldiers Whats being done to stop the use
of child soldiers?

• The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
  signed by the United Nations General Assembly in
  1989 protects children under the age of 15 from
  involvement in the armed forces.
• All countries but Somalia and the United States
  have ratified the CRC.
• A 2000 Protocol (optional addition) to the CRC
  raised the age from 15 to 18 years.
• This Protocol also prohibits non-governmental
  armed groups from recruiting soldiers under the
  age of 18.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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RATIFICATIONA 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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Child Soldiers Whats being done to help child
soldiers return to normal life?

• Disarmament to remove all weapons from the
  child.
• Demobilization the point at which the child
  leaves military life.
• Rehabilitation and Reintegration
• to prepare a child to return to
• normal life.
• Can be difficult for child to readjust.
• The UN and NGOs try to provide psychological
  support, education, and job training.

Source BBC
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Child Soldiers What you can do

• Educate yourself about Child Soldiers.
• Contact local, state, and national politicians
  for information about Child Soldiers.
• Write letters asking for their opinion on Child
  Soldiers
• Talk to your parents about Child Soldiers.
• Educate the adults in your life!
• Advocate for Child Soldiers awareness!
• Begin a social awareness/human rights club