PRESS BRIEFING BY SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE ON CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Today marked a turning point in the campaign to eradicate the use of children as soldiers, Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, told correspondents at a Headquarters press briefing today.

Briefing correspondents on the coming into force of a new international treaty -– the Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict -- which outlaws the use of any person below the age of 18 as a soldier, Mr. Otunnu made an impassioned appeal to the international community to end the recruitment and use of children in war.

Mr. Otunnu said that, under the key provisions of the treaty, governments and/or national armies could not conscript or send any person below the age of 18 into combat, and the age of recruitment had to be at a minimum above 16 years of age.  For insurgency groups and/or rebel groups, no person could be recruited or participate in war in any circumstances below the age of 18.

“This marks a new and much-higher threshold for the protection of the children in situations of conflict”, he said.  “This provides us with a new and very powerful tool for advocacy on the ground.  We must take this treaty from New York, Geneva, Vienna, to the theatres of conflict and make it effective on the ground.”

He added that it also provided the opportunity to monitor much more effectively and report on the conduct of parties to conflict relative to the recruitment and use of children in conflict.  “We must use the tools of naming and shaming, of isolation, of denial of legitimacy”, he said.  “As you know, the Security Council has already fired the first salvo in this direction by asking for a list to be submitted in the next report that the Secretary-General will give to the Security Council on the subject of children and armed conflict”.

He paid special tribute to the first 14 ratifications to the Protocol: Andorra, Bangladesh, Canada, Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Holy See, Iceland, Kenya, New Zealand, Panama, Romania, Sri Lanka, Monaco and Viet Nam.

Asked to paint a picture of the exact numbers of children currently involved in armed conflict and what impact the ratifications that had taken place have had so far, Mr. Otunnu said there were some 30 conflicts around the globe, encompassing mainly conflicts within countries, in which children were participating.

Concerning reports coming out of Liberia of the possibility of the remobilization of child soldiers in the wake of renewed fighting there, and what measures, if any, were being taken to protect the children, he said his Office was seeking “urgent” information on the matter.

He added that it was very important, in addition to stopping the recruitment and use of children, to address the factors that created the conditions that make children so vulnerable to recruitment and abduction.  “Certainly, we must, whenever possible, prevent conflicts in the first instance.  And where conflicts

have ended, like in Sierra Leone and Liberia, to make sure that they do not recur, because when they recur there is always a chance that children will be recycled into fighting groups.”

Continuing, he said the recruitment and use of child soldiers was done by both insurgents and some governments, and the longer the conflict lasted, the higher the chance that children would be used and used massively.  He cited Colombia, where war had gone on for 40 years, Afghanistan for more than 20 years, Angola for more than 25 years, Sri Lanka, Sudan and northern Uganda.  He added that more resources and support were needed to sustain the rehabilitation programmes that were already under way in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Sudan and elsewhere.

Asked by a correspondent what actually was being done by the United Nations to get those countries that were at the heart of the problem of child soldiers to ratify the Optional Protocol, Mr. Otunnu said that the Optional Protocol was negotiated and agreed to by consensus and, therefore, it was desirable that all countries sign and ratify it. 

“That being said, it is actually good news that some countries, which have or are still experiencing war, have had the courage to come forward and become one of the first parties to this Optional Protocol”, he added.  He said the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sri Lanka, Viet Nam, and Kenya (which had received child soldiers from other countries) had all taken the step to ratify the Optional Protocol, and described it as a “very good and hopeful sign”.

“We must mobilize all the key actors”, he said.  “The Security Council, the European Union, the Organization of African Unity, civil society organizations, religious institutions.”

A correspondent asked the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Atoki Ileka, who was also present at the briefing, what his Government was doing to try and implement the Protocol.  In reply, he said his country last December began implementing the programme of demobilizing child soldiers of less than 18 years.  That programme was still ongoing in the Kibumangu camp north of Kinshasa.  He pointed out, however, that scarcity of resources was hampering the progress of the programme, and he appealed to the international community to do more to support the programme.  In addition, another setback was that the Government could not extend implementation of the programme to the eastern parts of the country, especially Goma and Kisangani, where “rebel rule” was still in place.

Mr. Otunnu said that, when he last visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo in June last year, all political leaders agreed on a number of specific measures, which included non-recruitment, demobilization, a campaign of awareness and joint visits by United Nations agencies, non-governmental organizations and military groups to find child soldiers.  They further agreed, he added, that on the agenda of the inter-Congolese dialogue, the issue of the protection of children would be on the agenda, and the issue of child soldiers at the centre.

He added that cross-border activities also affected the situation.  Children had been recruited and abducted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and taken to neighbouring countries to be trained, in order to be sent back to fight.  The reverse process was also true, with children from neighbouring countries

recruited and abducted to be sent to fight in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  So, the problem must be tackled within the Congo with Congolese parties, as well as with others who were involved in the fighting.

Asked how important United States ratification was to the cause of ending child soldiering, Mr. Otunnu said, as far as he knew, there was no obstacle to the ratification within the United States.  “I am happy to tell you that, contrary to general belief, the United States is very much part of this consensus”, he said.  “The Optional Protocol was, in the end, agreed to by consensus.  It is true that in the course of the protracted negotiations that lasted for about six years, there were a few countries -- the United States, the United Kingdom and a few others -- who had difficulties agreeing to our proposals to what we called the straight 18, which is to say neither participation nor recruitment below 18.”

“In the end, we proposed a compromise”, he added.  The United States and the United Kingdom and the whole international community agreed -- no participation below 18.  In return, it was agreed that there would be no recruitment by national armies below the age of 16.  That was the compromise formula to which all agreed.  The United States had signed the instrument, and the process of ratification was now in the Senate.

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