Washington, D.C. — The just released report by the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers is generating considerable interest, says Jo Becker, Chairperson of the Coalition and childrens rights advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, one of the more than 40 organizations from around the world who form the coalition. She is hopeful the Coalition's report will help accelerate action on a UN protocol designed to protect children from being drafted into combat.
Under the terms of the protocol, adopted May 25, 2000, recruitment and use of soldiers under 18 in combat would be banned. Governments could accept soldiers as young as 16 but only with certain safeguards that include proof of age and parental permission.
But while 79 countries, including the United States, have signed the UN treaty, just six have actually ratified it. "It's a little disappointing that relatively few have ratified it so far," says Becker, adding she is "optimistic" that the pace of ratification will pick up.
The United States has not ratified the protocol although it was the eighth nation to sign on to it at the UN and resolutions in favor of it have passed both the House and Senate.
But to get to the Senate floor for ratification the protocol must first pass through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Its former Chairman, Jesse Helms (R-NC), had not been ethusiastic about the protocol feeling it served no U.S. national security interest. And as Chairman, Helms was able to slow action on the protocol.
However, according to one congressional source the Bush Administration is close to deciding to urge ratification of the protocol. It along with other treaties will be placed on a "treaty priority list" and sent as a letter from the administration to new Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Joseph Biden (D-DE) "We understand it is on the way," said a spokesperson in Senator Biden's office. "It has not arrived yet."
The Undersecretary of State for Congressional Relations actually signs the letter and priorities "are still being discussed; nothing is finalized," says analyst Tom Malionek in the Department of State's Office of Treaty Affairs. "We not only have a new administration," he said explaining that key State Department positions are still unfilled, "We have a new, new Congress. It's likely to be some time."
Advocates like Becker say the stories of child soldiers, drafted against their will to fight in grown-up wars, are horrible enough to warrant immediate action. The Coalition report presented chilling testimonies.
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"Mr. George," a Liberian who is now 13, recalled when his village was captured by a rebel faction. "[They] said all the young boys in the town should join them. Some of us said we didn't want to join them, but they started to hit us with a gun.... I was scared initially but then I lost my fear. I fought for two years, and then I managed to escape."
Girls are not exempt from brutal draft. "In Sudan we were distributed to men," said 14-year-old Concy Abanya who was abducted by the Joseph Kony Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda. "I was given to a man who had just killed his woman. I was not given a gun, but I helped in the abductions and grabbing of food from villagers. Girls who refused to become LRA wives were killed in front of us as a warning to the rest of us."
The young soldiers are often given drugs to make them fight fearlessly. "That's why I become unafraid of everything," said 14-year-old Sayo from Sierra Leone who fought with the rebel Armed Forces Revolutionary Council. "When you refuse to take drugs, it's called technical sabotage."
There is bi-partisan support for doing something on the issue, said a spokesperson in the office of Senator Paul Wellstone (D-MN) who has actively campaigned for ratification of the protocol. "But how you deal with it is not bi-partisan," the spokeperson said.
At any given time over 300,000 child soldiers are frontline fighters in 41 countries, according to the Coalition report. African wars involve more than 120,000 of these soldiers. "They're seen as dispensible," says Amanda Blair, an Africa Advocacy Associate at Amnesty International which is also part of the Coalition. "If they're blown up by land mines the attitude is, 'We'll just get another kid.'"
