Refugees International: Articles: 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence: Child Soldiers

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16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence: Child Soldiers

DRC 2003: Child soldiers
11/25/2006

GBV_Child_Soldiers

Refugees International joins the 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence to focus attention on how the effects of displacement are experienced differently by men and women. RI is dedicated to building greater awareness of GBV and incorporates a gender analysis of the situation of all displaced people and peacekeepers.

CHILD SOLDIERS

Some 300,000 children are currently serving as soldiers in current armed conflicts. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, children in more than 85 countries have been recruited into government armed forces, paramilitaries, civil militia and a wide variety of non-state armed groups. Government-backed militias and paramilitaries are the worst culprits. Over six million child combatants were killed or injured in the past decade. Armed forces in Angola, Colombia, Cote d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda have all used child soldiers in their conflicts.

Girls have been part of government militia or opposition fighting forces in more than 50 countries over recent years. They have been involved in armed conflicts from Angola to Sri Lanka, Colombia to Uganda. In addition to the traumas of a life of armed conflict, some female child soldiers also endure rape and other forms of sexual violence. The stigma of sexual violence continues with a female child soldier even when she returns to her community.

Many of the children - some younger than 10 years old - are ‘recruited’ to join armies worldwide. Some join because there are few options for them to make money and others are abducted or ‘forcibly recruited’. As part of the effort to deal with the growing problem of children serving in armed forces, the NGO working group on the Convention of the Rights of the Child and UNICEF conducted a symposium in Cape Town, South Africa. The result of that symposium, the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices recommends actions to be taken by the governments and communities in affected countries to end the violation of children's rights. Additionally, in July 2005, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1612, the sixth in a series of resolutions pertaining to children and armed conflict, which establishes the first comprehensive monitoring and reporting system to enforce compliance among those groups using child soldiers.

Over the years, RI has worked with child soldiers in Liberia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Northern Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire and Sri Lanka. RI works closely with the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers to urge the respective international community to eliminate the use of child soldiers and to meet their special needs in conflict and post-conflict situations.

Introduction	Domestic Violence	Rape & Sexual Violence
Reproductive Health & HIV/AIDS	Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration & Repatriation (DDRR)	Human Trafficking
Child Soldiers	Sexual Exploitation & Peacekeeping	Additional Resources