PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL’S SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE

FOR CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT

Although there had been some success in addressing the issue of children and armed conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dissident groups in Ituri and Kivu provinces continued to violate the rights of children with impunity, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, told correspondents this afternoon at Headquarters.

She said last week’s report on Children and Armed Conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (document S/2006/389) was the first country-specific report to be submitted to the Security Council under resolution 1612 (2005) and would be taken up this afternoon during the first substantive meeting of the Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.  Since the signing of the peace agreement, normalcy was slowly returning to the western and southern regions, but in the north and the east, in the Ituri and Kivu regions, dissident commanders and dissident forces continued to disrupt the transition.

The report highlighted three successes she said.  There had been a significant reduction in the recruitment and use of child soldiers over the last year; there had been a relative success in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes in especially the western and southern regions -- 18,524 children had been released, of which 2,880 were girls; and the judicial process was starting to assert itself, especially through the military tribunals, with convictions for child recruitments and mass rape, as well as the rendering of Thomas Lubango, a former Ituri militia leader, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.  The new Constitution stipulated that 18 years was the minimum age for recruitment, and a new law on sexual and gender-based violence had been adopted.

However, many problems remained, Ms. Coomaraswamy continued.  Dissident groups continued to violate the rights of children with impunity, especially in the Ituri and Kivu provinces.  In that regard, the Security Council Working Group would be called upon to take action against General Laurent Nkunda in north Kivu.  Other perpetrators included the Mai-Mai groups.  Another problem was that members of the Congolese armed forces and police remained the main perpetrators of grave violations against children.  It was essential that training and capacity for them were being developed, as they still used children to carry goods and engaged in sexual violence and exploitation of children.  “Sexual violence, sexual slavery and sexual exploitation remain a pervasive problem in the conflict areas”, she said.

She recommended that action be taken against those who continued to recruit and use child soldiers (in particular against Laurent Nkunda), that the Democratic Republic of the Congo security forces be trained so that they did not use illegal force and did not engage in violations against children.  She further recommended that the international community support judicial authorities and commit resources and personnel to assist in the reconstruction of the Congolese society so that there could be a greater reintegration of boys and girls.

Turning to her trip to Uganda from 3 to 10 June, she said there was a serious humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda, with almost 1 million children residing in poor conditions in camps for internally displaced persons.  The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) was still the largest threat to children, and they had recruited, utilized and mutilated child soldiers.  She said she had personally met with children who had been abducted and had described “horrific realities”.  The LRA had to be held accountable for some of those actions.  She had also confirmed that, although the Government did not have an active policy of recruiting children, children had slipped through the cracks and were in government forces, as well as in the Local Defence Units (LDUs) in the north of the country.

She said that one success of her mission was that Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs, had agreed in writing on four principles:  to commit to an action plan to have children released from the army and LDUs; to develop procedures to punish military personnel who knowingly recruit children under 18; to allow for independent monitoring of military premises to ensure that there were no children; and the criminalization of child recruitment in the law of the land.  If those principles were implemented, the country might be taken off the Security Council list of countries using child soldiers.

She noted that the judicial machinery did not function in northern Uganda, so that there was no real end to impunity.  Even though children were reintegrated, they were reintegrated in camps, where life was terrible.  There was a need for a more “holistic development vision” to allow them to have other livelihoods in order to prevent them from slipping back into military activities.

Answering correspondents’ questions, she said she had no clear indication how many children were still in the LRA.  However, 25,000 children had gone through registration centres and had been demobilized over the last few years.  That might be half of the total number.  A large percentage -- it might be 50 per cent or more -- of the LRA consisted of children.  It might be above 50 per cent.

People in the camps had, on the one hand, expressed a strong desire for peace, but, on the other hand, a strong desire not to have impunity so that perpetrators would return to society.  The society itself was torn between those two desires.  That had to be kept in mind during peace negotiations.

Asked about possible international action regarding child soldiers in Uganda, she said UNICEF research had shown that the emergency response of the international community -- focusing on registration, income generating skills and psycho-social support -- were now not so important as general development of society.  There was a need in northern Uganda to move from emergency to development, as one of the reasons that children slipped back into armies was that they had no alternative.

In response to a question regarding any possible investigations by her office into the practice in the Palestinian territories of recruiting children and teenagers as suicide bombers by various groups, she said that that area in the past had indeed been covered by her predecessor and that her office would continue to look into the situation.  It would be addressed in the upcoming report on Children and Armed Conflict to be submitted to the Security Council in October.

Asked what region in the world had the most child soldiers, she answered that, although she did not like to concentrate on one particular region, the situation of insecurity in the Great Lakes region drew particular attention regarding child soldiers.  However, there were also issues in Asian countries such as Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka, as well as in Colombia in Latin America.

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For information media • not an official record