War Is Not Child's Play

Bruce Van Voorhis

In the Kathmandu Declaration on the Use of Children as Soldiers issued at the end of a conference in May, recommendations were made to end the military recruitment of children under the age of 18 by both government armed forces and anti-government armed opposition groups , a practice which has led to more than

300,000 child soldiers worldwide currently participating in armed conflicts. In Asia, this phenomenon is evident in Cambodia, Burma, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, the Uyghur uprising in Xinjiang Province in China, Nepal, Afghanistan, Kashmir and insurgencies in northeastern India, according to the Asia report published in May by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers based in London (see the coalition's web site at www.child-soldiers.org for a copy of the report).

Since the Asia-Pacific Conference on the Use of Children as Soldiers brought together government officials and representatives of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Nepal from 15-18 May, the coalition has noted that a major development has taken place in the international community's effort to stop the use of children to fight the wars created by adults. In late May, the coalition reports, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly. The first Asian country to sign the new Optional Protocol, the coalition adds, is Cambodia, which took this initiative on 28 June. This is a significant step forward as the coalition's Asia report explains that child soldiers Ð girls as well as boys Ð had their childhoods destroyed by the country's civil war as they were used by both the Khmer Rouge and the government to fight the war, a practice which continued into the 1990s. Today, the report continues, Cambodia faces the major task of demobilising, rehabilitating and reintegrating these children back into society, a responsibility which has not been addressed by any demobilisation plans.

Other steps taken by the international community to prevent children from becoming soldiers include Convention 182 of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Statute of the International Criminal Court and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1261 passed in August 1999. Under the ILO convention, the forced or compulsory recruitment of children under the age of 18 is considered one of the worst forms of child labour. In the Statute of the International Criminal Court, the use or enlistment of children under the age of 15 in armed conflict is a war crime, whether they are recruited for an international conflict between countries or for an internal national conflict. In addition, the U.N. Security Council, building on last year's resolution, will once again debate the issue at the end of August this year. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers adds, moreover, that various regional governmental bodiesÐthe Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)Ðas well as the Nordic foreign ministers have all endorsed measures to stop the use of child soldiers.

The coalition notes, however, that similar responses in Asia by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have not yet been taken, and it calls upon NGOs and others concerned about the issue of child soldiers to lobby their governments to not only take steps to eradicate the use of child soldiers in their country but, building on the initiative of Cambodia, to push their government to sign the Optional Protocol to the CRC and to urge ASEAN and SAARC to take action as well to endorse the protocol. At the meeting in Kathmandu, the representative from the Indonesian government indicated that Indonesia would be willing to bring this issue before ASEAN. In the opinion of the coalition, Cambodia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand will be willing to support this initiative while Burma and Singapore will resist this move. Similar efforts, the coalition says, should also be made in the SAARC countries of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.

By signing the Optional Protocol, governments must set 18 as the minimum age for recruiting soldiers. These requirements, the coalition and the Kathmandu Declaration add, must be enshrined in national legislation and must be enforced. Furthermore, all soldiers who are under the age of 18 must be demobilised from the armed forces.

Because the problem of child soldiers is often transnational in nature as children in one country are recruited for conflicts in another, the coalition seeks a regional response to the issue, and thus, ASEAN and SAARC are seen as important forums for addressing the issue. With the endorsement of ASEAN and SAARC, this will create additional pressure for member governments of these regional bodies to sign the Optional Protocol and to take action to stop the use of child soldiers in conflicts in Southeast and South Asia.

In addition to these measures, the Kathmandu Declaration, in promoting mandatory, accessible and quality education for all children, urges governments not to include compulsory basic military training in educational curriculums and to adjust their national budgets to reflect the priorities of education and development rather than expenditures for the military. The declaration also encourages communities to create 'Child Solder Free Zones' or 'Weapons Free Zones' as a local response to the use of children as soldiers.

Among the factors leading to the use of children as soldiers, the declaration lists poverty and economic disparity, injustice, displacement, a lack of educational opportunities, the proliferation of arms and a culture of militarisation within society. Unemployment and the economic conditions just mentionedÐpoverty and economic disparityÐalso generate the conditions for armed conflict, the declaration explains, as do intolerance and discrimination and issues related to one's identity.

To resolve these problems, the declaration calls for peaceful alternatives that utilise and build upon traditional, non-violent means of resolving conflicts and to involve children in the difficult task of building peace and reconciliation in society by introducing structures and processes for children to participate in policymaking and in all phases of designing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating programmes.

As for healing the long-term wounds left by war, the drafters of the declaration recommend that local indigenous cultures and belief systems be used to aid child soldiers and their families and communities to overcome the trauma and pain of their recent experience with violence. Governments and NGOs must also work to facilitate reconciliation and forgiveness, the declaration continues, remembering that child soldiers are victims of violence as well as tools used in perpetuating it. The declaration also calls for a holistic approach to reintegrating child soldiers back into society through strategies that incorporate education, vocational training, income-generating programmes and trauma counselling.

The militarisation of the childhood of Asia's youth is, of course, a reflection of the militarisation of society as a whole. Its ramifications, however, extend far beyond present conflicts and involve the determination of values and acceptable levels of violence in Asian societies in the future as today's child soldiers become tomorrow's adult citizens and decision makers if they survive their experience as child soldiers. What, for instance, will be the attitude toward the use of violence of those who have killed other human beings and who have witnessed death as a part of daily life as a child? It is these implications, as well as protecting the lives of Asia's children, that call for an urgent response to the issue of child soldiers by NGOs and other members of civil society.