hen my brothers and I were captured, the LRA (lord’s Resistance Army) explained to us that five brothers could not serve in their lines because we would not have worked well. So they tied up our two younger brothers and urged us to watch. They beat them to death with sticks. They told us that this would give us more strength to combat. My youngest brother was nine years-old”.
This was how a Ugandan former soldier remembered his tragic recruitment in the lines of the LRA of Joseph Kony, in north Uganda responsible for the kidnapping of over 20,000 children and killing of over 100,000 people. This and other testimonies were issued today by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, on the day of presentation in London, headquarters of the coalition of human rights and peace groups, of its global report, defined as “the most ample and complete review on the dimension of the phenomenon on an international scale” by Amnesty International, also part of the coalition along with dozens of other national and international organizations worldwide.
Since 2001 dozens of armed groups used child-soldiers in at least 21 ongoing local or regional conflicts, training them in the use of weapons and explosives and submitting them to rape, violence and forced labor.
In the report the Coalition remarks the use of child soldiers in many conflicts underway in practically all the continents and underlines the scarce commitment of the United Nations Security Council, European Union, G8 and single nations in the application and respect of the ban that prohibits the use of combatants under the age of 18. It is difficult to give a precise estimate on the total number of minors utilised in the various conflicts: the most reliable however indicates at least 300,000 child-soldiers.
The report indicates that since 2001 dozens of armed groups used child-soldiers in at least 21 ongoing local or regional conflicts, “training them in the use of weapons and explosives” and submitting them to rape, violence and forced labor”. It is important to note that according to the coalition, also the United States continues recruiting minors in its military ranks. Though the document examines the situation of some 196 nations, particular attention and space was dedicate to realities such as those of Colombia and east Democratic Republic of Congo, where tens of thousands of child-soldiers, even 12 years of age, are used in battle, as spies, carriers or even simply slaves, but also situations such as those in Burundi, Myanmar, the Ivory Coast and other nations.
In regard to Colombia the report indicates that 14-thousand girls and boys were utilized as child-soldiers by armed opposition groups or paramilitaries backed by the government of Bogotá. The Coalition firmly calls for the banning of any form of recruitment of persons under the age of 18 in the armed forces and full implementation of the United Nations Treaty on child-soldiers, judged a useful instrument to reduce the number of children in conflicts. But “at least 60 governments, including those of Australia, Austria, Germany, Holland and the United Kingdom, continue legally recruiting children of the ages of 16 and 17”, specifies Amnesty International in a statement.
(From MISNA)