SPECIAL EFFORTS ARE NEEDED FOR RECOVERY OF CHILD SOLDIERS, THIRD COMMITTEE TOLD DURING DEBATE ON CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

Press Release
GA/SHC/3539

SPECIAL EFFORTS ARE NEEDED FOR RECOVERY OF CHILD SOLDIERS, THIRD COMMITTEE TOLD DURING DEBATE ON CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

Warning that without timely assistance, Africa could quickly fall back into the cycle of violence, the representative of Sierra Leone called for a comprehensive programme of assistance to the children of war-torn societies in order to bring durable and sustainable peace to the continent as a whole. He addressed the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) this morning as it met to continue considering issues related to the promotion and protection of the rights of children.

Stating that his country’s armed conflict had been dubbed “the children’s war”, that representative explained that child soldiers had gone through extreme mental and physical hardship and needed special care to recover from the brutality which they had endured. Children whether as fighters, sex slaves or porters had become the first and easiest victims of conflict, he added.

The representative of Mozambique called for the reintegration of children affected by armed conflict who had been left orphans, traumatized and disabled by war. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) should adopt preventive measures to avert crises which could lead to a mass deprivation of the rights of children, mothers and other socially vulnerable groups, the representative of Kazakhstan said.

Saying that the destruction of a society’s future was inevitable if its children grew up warped, traumatized and without hope, the representative of India said mechanisms needed to be developed for ensuring that non-state actors and terrorists exploiting children in armed conflict situations were brought to justice.

A number of speakers stressed that poverty was the root cause of many of the problems affecting today’s children. The representative of Costa Rica said it was impossible for children to enjoy their rights when they were hungry and had no housing, and called for the world community to promote sustainable development, so that children could have their basic needs met to give them a sense of dignity.

Third Committee - 1a - Press Release GA/SHC/3539 25th Meeting (AM) 28 October 1999

The representative of Libya said poverty, particularly in Africa, created conflict that exacerbated natural disasters and phenomena such as endemic diseases. Poverty was a root cause for the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, the representative of Iceland warned.

Statements were also made by the representatives of Croatia, Bahrain, Holy See, Mongolia, China, Uganda, Sudan, Guatemala, Ecuador, Iceland, Philippines, Republic of Korea and Mexico also speaking on behalf of the Rio Group.

The Committee will meet again today at 3:00 p.m. to continue its discussion on issues related to the promotion and protection of the rights children. The Committee is also expected to take up draft resolutions on social development, international drug control, the advancement of women and the right of peoples to self-determination.

Committee Work Programme

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) met this morning to continue considering questions related to the promotion and protection of the rights of the child.

Statements

TANIA VALERIE RAGUZ (Croatia) said the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child meant it was time to revisit the notion of an international strategy for the protection, promotion and respect of children’s rights worldwide. The Convention was the centrepiece for international and national action, but more needed to be done to bridge the gap between existing international norms and actual adherence to them.

The plight of children affected by armed conflict was an extremely urgent issue when discussing child rights, she said. Enormous effort by Member States was urgently needed. Security Council resolution 1261/1999 of 25 August on children and armed conflict was a ground-breaking plan, putting the spotlight on children victimized by war. Eradication of poverty was another first priority to bridge the gap in the disparities faced by children throughout the world. The International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention on the worst forms of child labour was a significant step in the right direction.

Croatia had implemented numerous measures to protect children’s rights at the national level, she said. Enormous and systematic efforts were required of national governments to ensure an enabling environment. Regional conferences were an important instrument to help nations. Ways and means had to be found to fund those activities, as well as to protect the needs of children overall.

HUSSEIN JASSIM (Bahrain) said no one doubted the rights of children, as shown by the quasi-universal ratification of the Convention. Children were exploited in many ways, as through pornography on the Internet and their use in warfare. It was of concern that children lived under inadequate circumstances. More than 20 million children were refugees and displaced persons. Many of them had suffered traumas. The use of children as soldiers should be of major concern to the international community.

Bahrain attached significant importance to children, the adults of tomorrow, he said. His country had focused on health issues relating to children, and had made significant progress in educating people in an awareness of health issues. Child abuse was also being seriously addressed in Bahrain. The eradication of that indignity to children had been promoted by enactment of a law making it mandatory to investigate in any situation of a child’s death where abuse was suspected.

RENATO R. MARTINO (Permanent Observer of the Holy See) said crimes committed against millions of children, born and unborn, confirmed that without respecting fundamental values, the family of nations would end “by digging the graveyards for the future generations instead of securing for them a bright future”. The first step in the right direction was to create an objective and solid international awareness on the dignity of the human person. “Only if scrupulous respect for that dignity and worth is deeply rooted in the hearts of each individual and of each society and nation, will the rights of the child be protected worldwide”, he said. Love and care were the true expressions of that respect. The lack of love created violence. Love and care could only be assured in the context of the family, he said. “Take the children away from the ambient of the family and, we are sure to witness a violent youth and an increase in juvenile criminality”, he added. Those who attempted to reduce the family into a “mere relationship” or to weaken it by false interpretations were gravely endangering the future of the next generation. Also, prevention, protection and rehabilitation had become urgent steps to be taken by the international community with children affected by armed conflicts. In the rehabilitation process, special attention should be paid to healing and education. “Not a single bud of life should be allowed to fade before it is even given the opportunity to fully blossom”, he said.

TSOGT NYAMSUREN (Mongolia) said it was futile to speak about human security if the international community could not ensure the protection of children in wartime or in armed conflict. Without protecting its children, no society could be fair, stable or prosperous. All societies were morally bound to protect children and create all necessary conditions for their development, education and welfare. “The protection of children and the defenseless is a real yardstick of assessing a State’s commitment to human rights and dignity”, she said.

It was shocking to have found out about the abuse of girls in domestic service even in some diplomatic missions in certain countries, she said. The reform process in her country had been difficult. A large section of the population was poor and unemployed. Child mortality was still high with 56.4 per 1,000 live births. Furthermore, the problem of street children was still of great concern in society. In order to correct those problems, her Government was mobilizing all its internal resources and implementing different programmes and projects. For example, her Government had already allocated 10 million tugriks to help in the plight of street children.

SUN ANG (China) said the fact that the Convention had been universally accepted was a significant accomplishment of the international community in promoting and protecting the rights of the child. To further that cause, greater efforts at the international level had to be made. First, all countries that had not acceded to the Convention should do so as early as possible. Second, the two optional protocols should be drafted. Finally, the necessary conditions for implementation of the Convention should be created by nations.

That meant showing respect for the various traditions and cultural values of different nations, which were inherently linked to the growth of children, he continued. That, in turn, implied the need to improve the living conditions of children in developing countries. China was a State Party to the Convention and the survival, protection and development of children were an important part of the Government’s work.

CATHERINE OTITI (Uganda) said it was easy to say that today’s children would be tomorrow’s generation, but unless action was taken, some of those children would grow up to be abnormal. Children deserved unconditional and impartial consideration. They suffered greatly because of armed conflict. She therefore demanded the release of children abducted in northern Uganda by the Lord’s Liberation Army.

The Special Representative should heed Uganda’s request for him to visit the country, she said. It was possible his advocacy and convening role would help save the lives of those whose very being was the definition of innocence. The suffering of children bore many faces and the face of children in northern Uganda was heartbreaking. Uganda’s resolve to save her children was strengthened with each child who was abducted, killed, tortured, raped, enslaved, orphaned, and if God was merciful, released. Students had been abducted and those children remained missing. Words on paper about children’s rights remained only that until action was taken.

She said the International Criminal Court had recognized that injustices against children, including rape and slaughter, were heinous crimes. If adults could not comprehend that poverty, malnutrition, disease and natural disasters were already too much for children to handle, then it was possible the scars would never heal.

ABDEL RAOUF AMIR (Sudan) said the current situation of children reflected the situation of today’s humanity. The economic progress by some was in contract to the terrible poverty in developing nations, where children suffered greatly. The international community needed to help to bring about peace and stability where conflicts had taken place for long periods of time.

Domestic values must be enhanced so that the culture of peace could flourish, he said. The family was the main nucleus of society in which children were raised. For that reason, it needed to be protected. National machinery needed to be established to protect children, especially where conflicts were taking place. The situation of the Sudanese children in the south was of great concern. The rebel movement in that area used children as human shields. The international community needed to condemn those actions.

LUIS F. CARRANZA-CIFUENTES (Guatemala) said 45 per cent of his country’s population was younger than 15 years of age with only 3.3 per cent older than 65. According to the Procurator for Children of the Office of the Public Ministry, in February 1994 20 organizations were engaged in the kidnapping of children. Also, it had been reported that an average of six children a day were kidnapped in his country by traffickers in minors, who promoted illegal adoptions.

A study by UNICEF revealed that the United States, France, Sweden, Germany, Italy, Australia, the United Kingdom and Israel were the countries receiving the greatest number of Guatemalan children as adoptees, he said. According to the United States Embassy in his country, between 400 and 500 adoptions to that country were approved annually. The cost of adopting a child varied from $10,000 to $30,000. Adoption had become a commercial pursuit that brought profits to its practitioners, who included lawyers, doctors and public officials, among others. They had converted adoption “an institution in itself imbued with high humanitarian values into one of the most unsavoury businesses”, he said. A bill on adoption law had been submitted to Congress by his Government. It provided for the establishment of an adoption council, which would review the files of children were being adopted and also keep a record of the minors and adopters concerned. Moreover, under that law the biological mother would undergo DNA tests and notaries public would participate in the adoption process.

BERND NIEHAUS (Costa Rica) said that respect for children’s fundamental rights was essential before they could enjoy them. It was impossible for children to enjoy their rights when they were victims of poverty, when they were hungry and had no housing. The world community should struggle to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development so that children could have the minimum requirement of having their basic needs met to give them a sense of dignity. Of equal concern was the situation of children being abused, he said, whether by armed conflict or sexual misuse. It was impossible to quantify the amount of sadness suffered by children caught in situations of armed conflict. It was also not possible to quantify the opportunities lost when the international community did not help them. As a first step, the optional protocol on children and armed conflict should be adopted. The sexual exploitation of children was equally abominable. His country had not been immune, and some tourists had come with abusive intentions. Costa Rica had enacted laws specifying abuses such as pornography, trafficking and sex tourism as crimes. The countries of origin of those demanding the abuse needed to take action against the offenders. Costa Rica had signed the ILO Convention on Children and had instituted national legislation concerning children in the streets. A healthy society needed to be based on the love and support that families provided, but families were the first victims of hardship. Both national and international efforts needed to be turned to a reaffirmation of the central role of families in any society.

MONICA MARTINEZ (Ecuador) said her country right now was learning to live with volcanos and the situation was made stark by the numbers of refugees. Children did their best to live with the conditions, as did the Government. One hundred thousand children had been resettled this week.

She said that apart from emergency measures, there were numerous international organizations working in the country on long term programmes to improve the condition of children. Ecuador was enacting legislation towards that end; that required an understanding of the situation, addressing it and then implementing it. Ecuador relied on international support, as well as bilateral and multilateral arrangements. The global strategy for protecting the rights of the child should focus on addressing the issue of poverty, particularly in view of the fact that the vulnerable were the first victims of globalization. New initiatives such as vaccine campaigns were vital. They should be carried out without affecting long-term development programmes.

IBRAHIM M. KAMARA (Sierra Leone) said children in his country had been a “tragic feature of the rebel war since it started in March 1991”. More than 10,000 children under the age of 18 had been enlisted as fighters by the rebels. An estimated 2.5 million of his country’s population of 4.5 million were refugees. Sixty per cent of that number were children.

Children who had participated in the war had gone through extreme mental and physical hardship, he said. They needed special care to recover from the brutality which they had endured. Most of those children had been abducted and while in captivity had been ordered to attend military training and take part in combat. Girls had been repeatedly and violently sexually abused. “Children whether as fighters, sex slaves or porters have become the first and easiest victims of conflict”, he said. His country’s conflict had been dubbed “the children’s war”. “These child soldiers were not only the victims of the armed conflict in which they were caught up, but they were the perpetrators of most of the atrocities committed”, he explained. The integration of former child soldiers in society meant nothing in the absence of jobs and educational opportunities. Without timely assistance, war-torn societies in Africa could quickly fall back into the cycle of violence. A comprehensive programme of assistance for those societies was essential in order to bring durable and sustainable peace to the African continent as a whole.

YERZHAN KH. KAZYKHANOV (Kazakhstan) said one of the basic components of UNICEF’s work should be the reorientation of the policies of the United Nations Children’s Fund. The latter needed to make a timely determination of regions with potential conflicts. “The Fund should adopt preventive measures to avert crises which could lead to a mass deprivation of the rights of children, mothers and other socially vulnerable groups”, he said.

A number of legislative instruments to protect the rights of children had been adopted by his Government. Also, Parliament had adopted a law on marriage and the family, which reflected the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The full enjoyment of children’s rights, respect for their human dignity and personality would undoubtedly help to make the world a better place.

THORSTEINN INGOLFSSON (Iceland) said an increasing number of children around the world were facing new dangers and risks that threatened their right to childhood and development, and in many cases, their lives. The interests of children should be high on the United Nations agenda as an integral part of policy planning in development and related issues such as poverty, which was one of the root causes of child labour. Interventions must be based on analysis of the cultural, economic and social context of children’s work, but under no circumstances should children work in hazardous, exploitative and socially damaging situations. The ILO Convention was welcome in that regard.

He said it was accepted that poverty was a root cause for the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Those were global phenomena occurring in both developed and developing countries. The situation required international cooperation, not only at the government level but among private parties such as the media, which could play an important role in preventing commercial sexual exploitation of children. The abhorrent practice had to stop because it was not just a social, economic and political crisis, but a moral and spiritual one for the global community. It was an age of increased migration between countries. Education, both formal and informal, was the key to stopping exploitation of children. It was also key in the rehabilitation of the victims.

ABDUSSALAM SERGEWA (Libya) said children were the hope of the world and the most vulnerable group in any society. The international community had to intensify all efforts nationally, regionally and internationally to ensure that they had the basics and were protected from exploitation. Protecting children’s rights started with the defence of a society’s values and its families. The plight of children was a source of worry because of poverty and the dire economic conditions in many countries, particularly in Africa, where it created conflict that exacerbated natural disasters and phenomena such as endemic diseases.

The situation of conflict that made children both victims and combatants needed to be addressed, he said. It was an affront to humanity. It was necessary to mobilize public opinion to correct such situations and to coordinate efforts. Because of the extreme importance of the rights of the child and the Convention, and because Libya’s legislation was based on Islam, children were naturally protected in that country.

BERTA COSSA (Mozambique) said one of the main challenges still facing her Government was the reintegration of children affected by armed conflict. Most of those children had been left orphans, traumatized and disabled by war. In order to minimize their suffering, her Government, in collaboration with national and international NGO’s and UNICEF had been providing assistance that included shelter, food, health care and education. Helping those children had not been an easy task, since her Government faced problems of scarce financial resources.

It was regrettable that children were forced to become adults even before their age and body were ready to embrace adult life, she said. It was time for the international community to take concrete actions in order to ensure that the girls of today could grow up to become the “dignified women of tomorrow”, she continued. Child prostitution had contributed largely to the increasing number of cases of HIV/AIDS in her country. The Government had been undertaking educational campaigns on the problem.

MARIA LOURDES V. RAMIRO LOPEZ (Philippines) said in order to guide the implementation of her country’s commitment to the Convention on the Rights of Children, the “Philippine Plan of Action for Children 2000 and Beyond” had been adopted. It focused on five areas of concern, namely: family care and alternative parental arrangement; basic health and nutrition, welfare and social security, safe environment; basic education, leisure, recreation, cultural activities; the protection of children in especially difficult circumstances; and fundamental civil rights.

Of the 22.4 million Filipino children aged 5-17 years old, 3.7 million were working, a number of whom were perceived to be in hazardous environment, she said. Her Government had ratified the ILO convention which called for the strengthening of existing national laws on child labour, particularly in regard to the minimum age of employment, which was 15. Also, since 1992, an inter-agency effort called “Rescue the Child Worker” had conducted a total of 107 rescue operations involving 227 minors, many of whom were working in bars and nightclubs.

INDER JIT (India) said children were increasingly suffering in domestic violence situations and they were often thrown into an adults’ world to eke out a subsistence before they were in a position to do so. Issues concerning children had to be seen in the context of the socio-economic realities of the developing world. What rights could be exercised when families were progressively marginalized because of the inroads of private capital, which invested little in social development. How much corporate capital has gone towards building schools, providing affordable nutrition or cheap textbooks? The problems of the crucial issues of good governance, transparency, efficient use of resources and affirmative actions for the welfare of children could be tackled in developing societies. But there was no answer for the lack of financial and technological resources without which no economic or social agenda could be carried out.

Isolated from reality, the issues of children in armed conflict, children in prostitution and children providing labour could be discussed only in a lofty way, he said. All developing countries were concerned about their children, about their rights, their education, health and welfare. But still, 200 million children under the age of five were malnourished and 12 million deaths of those under five years were due to malnutrition. Those concerns gripped developing countries. At the core lay the strong positive correlation between poverty and exclusion. The thin spread of the meagre resources on those areas of the concern hardly made a dent. The development countries required a minimum critical mass of resources.

The Special Representative had been right to link the sale of children with the judicial system, the media and education, he said. The role of the family in such problems was also a factor. While governments could be brought under scrutiny, mechanisms needed to be developed for ensuring that non-state actors and terrorists exploiting children in armed conflict situations were brought to justice. The most damaging loss a society could suffer was the collapse of its own value system. The destruction of a society’s future was inevitable if its children grew up warped, traumatized and without hope.

HYO-EUN KIM (Republic of Korea) said there were stark regional disparities in the situation of children. The imbalance could be changed significantly through national efforts supported by the commitment and mobilisation of the international community.

One situation requiring immediate address was the poignant lesson of how conflicts affected children by making them purposeful targets of violence, she said. Children had become human hostages of unscrupulous military actions intended to break communities into political and military submission. Similarly, there were about 250 million children around the world being subjected to labour exploitation. The immediate goal was to remove the most intolerable forms of child labour. The ILO Convention had broadened the definition of child labour beyond economic exploitation. Given the fact that the persistence of poverty was an underlying cause of child labour, the international community should redouble efforts to alleviate poverty and provide universal access to primary education.

The trafficking and sexual exploitation of children was wholly intolerable, she said. It was getting worse with the development of information technologies and the relative impunity of the clients who practiced such abuses. To come to the aid of such young victims, international efforts had to be strengthened against the providers of the sex industry and sex tourism, as well as against the customers themselves.

MARIA ANTONIETA MONROY (Mexico), also speaking on behalf of the Rio Group said sexual exploitation of children was one of the most abject ways of violating their rights. Such exploitation caused irreparable psychological and physical harm. Through effective national action and international cooperation child prostitution, sexual tourism, and child pornography should be eradicated.

There was great concern for a prompt and lasting solution to lessen the suffering of children in war and armed conflict as well as in post war situations, she said. Children should not participate in wars or armed conflicts. Concerted political action, as well as international pressure, must be applied to those who systematically violated the rights of children. Also, customs and traditions which were prejudicial to girls should be eliminated. In addition, there was great concern about the increasing number of children who suffered from HIV/AIDS.

* *** *