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Drafted at the Age of Twelve Printable Version PRINTABLE VERSION
by Ian Beacock, Canada Oct 31, 2003
Peace & Conflict   Opinions
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The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is one of the most comprehensive and meaningful documents ever drafted. It sets out in writing the basic rights that all children should be entitled to: time to play, an education, a loving family, and freedom from war, to name but a few. Non-governmental organizations all over the world help draw our attention to regions where these cardinal rights are being violated. They run aggressive campaigns to collect funds to build schools and playgrounds. The members of the international community set aside respectable portions of their budgets for foreign aid, so that these goals may be achieved that much sooner.

However, the fundamental right of freedom from war and conflict is increasingly being disregarded – and the global community is not stepping in. Children are not exempt from conflict in many parts of the world. In reality, they are often a part of it. The use of children as soldiers is a growing threat to the principles set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These young people are being taken from their homes, sometimes as early as their twelfth birthdays, and are being forced into military service.

Children as young as twelve are being shown the intricate workings of a Kalashnikov assault rifle, and learning when to pull the trigger for maximum effect. Children as young as twelve, risking life and limb to throw a grenade into a ditch full of enemy soldiers – often also children. Children as young as twelve are dodging bullets, cowering from explosions, trying not to step on the corpses of their friends.

Such actions and events are inexcusable, and should never transpire. Children, no matter what their age or situation, deserve to have a childhood. They deserve the right to be able to play soccer in the street, or make-believe games in the park. They deserve the right to go to school and learn, so that someday they may have a job. They deserve a family to go home to who cares for them. They deserve good food. They deserve friends. And they deserve peace.

When despicably cowardly organizations begin using children as their front-line soldiers, they are destroying one of the most precious commodities on the planet: childhood.

One of the most tragic situations for children exists in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where rebel forces battle the government for years at a time. The Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma, or RCD-Goma, is the leading rebel faction operating out of the north-eastern Congo. And how old are the soldiers on their front lines against the government?

In 1999, RCD-Goma signed a series of treaties now known as the Lusaka Accords, which prohibited the use of child soldiers in their armies. It is an exemplary step by this rebel organization, but one that they obviously do not feel the need to abide by after the signing of these treaties. Despite these agreements, the Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma still takes children from their homes, trains them as soldiers, and sends them to sites of conflict to fight for their cause against the government.

Human Rights Watch, a non-governmental organization that monitors violations of human rights globally, seems to be one of the few establishments that have noticed this flagrant infraction of children’s rights. On their website, www.hrw.org, Human Rights Watch meritoriously draws attention to the actions of RCD-Goma, and urges members of the international community to act, rather than wait in the wings.

This organization could not be more accurate in their appraisal of the situation. Bodies such as the United Nations must act against the horrendous combat experiences that children are undergoing around the world. These are experiences that no one should have to endure, much less children still in primary school. If the United Nations does not act on this threat to children’s rights and the tenets set forth in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, it runs the risk of being seen as incapable and lacking the moral respect of the international community.

Nevertheless, the United Nations is not the only player in this unfolding drama which has not fulfilled its moral obligations to the children of the world. Separate nation-states such as the United States, France, or Russia, have not acted decisively on the issue, and as a result, countless children die each year in their combat fatigues, away from their families. The nations of the world must uphold their obligation to children by: passing conclusive legislation to prevent the use of child soldiers, by allocating more funds to government branches and non-governmental organizations which fight the use of child soldiers, and by educating the public. Until international governments undertake these procedures, they are not completely achieving their moral duties.

The use of child soldiers is a quandary not known within the Western world, but only to those nations wracked by civil war, insecurity, and destabilization. We must protect children’s rights in both our own nations and our global neighbours by fighting the use of child soldiers.





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