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Over the past thirteen years or so, the plight of
children exposed to armed conflict has rapidly gained
prominence on the international agenda. One of the catalysts
for this spurt in interest may, in fact, be the 1989
Convention on the Rights of the Child that was carefully
drafted over a ten-year period (1979-89) by a working group of
the UN Commission on Human Rights. But there were at least
three other major developments that can be credited with
igniting international interest on this issue.
· The
first was the creation of the post of Special Advisor to the
UN for monitoring child prostitution, child pornography and
child trafficking.
· The second was the efforts made
by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the International
Labour Organization (ILO) to track, statistically, the infant
victims of military conflicts.
· The third was an
initiative of the ILO to prevent the worst cases of child
labour. [Volger, 2002, p.257]
At the base of this
seemingly 'new activism' on behalf of children was what
appeared to be the growing universal recognition, and
acceptance, of the provisions in the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and the growing
acknowledgment that 'childhood' was a 'special category'
deserving particular human rights attention. In addition, the
exponential growth in the influence of non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) - like the International Committee of the
Red Cross, Save the Children Fund, Defence for Children
International - on states and intergovernmental bodies gave
momentum to child protection issues. [See Longford, 1996,
pp.214-240]
By 1989, when the Convention on the Rights
of the Child was finally drafted, it became evident that a new
normative and legal framework for child protection had
emerged. Articles 22, 38, and 39 of this document make
specific reference to safeguarding children during armed
conflicts.
This emphasis on child protection during
hostilities became even more significant with the end of the
Cold War. Observers of that pivotal juncture in world politics
have acknowledged a discernible shift in the nature of
warfare, from inter-state to intra-state conflicts. As the
recent report of the International Commission on Intervention
and State Sovereignty states: the "most marked security
phenomenon since the end of the Cold War has been the
proliferation of armed conflict within states." [ICISS, 2001,
p.4]
Civil conflicts not only weaken state structures
and societal institution (as noted, for example, in the cases
of Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia), they also
cause harm to civilians, especially the most vulnerable -
women and children. [see Chesterman, 2001]
Children are disproportionately affected by
the carnage of contemporary armed conflict. [The
Machel Review, 2000]
It is estimated that, at the
close of the twentieth century, as many as 300,000 children
were, directly or indirectly, involved in armed conflicts in
some 50 countries. Over the last decade alone, about 2 million
children (under the age of 18) died as a direct result of
conflicts.
During that same period over 1 million were
orphaned, 6 million were seriously or permanently disabled
[Canada, World View, 2000, p.3], roughly 13 million have been
displaced within the borders of their own countries, another
10 million became refugees, and many more suffered serious
psychological trauma, all because of armed conflicts. ["Stop
using child soldiers", 2000]
In addition, thousands of
children have been drugged, raped, sexually abused and
deprived of adequate food, proper sanitation, basic health
care and education. Many are living in squalid conditions in
economically depressed and marginalized regions of the world
(or in failed states where armed conflicts are most likely to
break out or where they have already erupted), thus making
these children ripe pickings for recruiters who are in the
business of waging war. For example, street children were
readily recruited in the Sierra Leone conflict. A similar
situation exists today in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Uganda, Liberia, and Burundi, among other states.
Threats to children increase with the collapse of
state and society structures, the proliferation of small arms,
the ubiquity of landmines, as well as the organized crime and
random acts of violence that often accompany armed conflict.
[Bruderlein, p.222] These threats are exacerbated by
unscrupulous arms dealers and those who profit from blood
diamonds or other resources used to fuel civil conflicts.
Some children are abducted by government armed forces
or rebel groups and forced to act as spies, sex slaves, bush
wives, exploited laborers, or soldiers. Indeed, some of them
are, unfortunately knowingly and sometimes unwittingly,
perpetrators of horrible acts of violence in war zones.
Others are attracted by the "glamour" of the warrior's
cachet, and still others join the armed ranks (whether of
government or of rebel forces) to help feed their parents and
siblings. In essence, children are being used as
"cannon-fodder" in many of the intra-state theatres of
conflict. [Marie-Joelle Zahar, 2001, pp.43-65] They have been
both victims as well as perpetrators of violence in such
contexts.
This situation is appalling and cannot be
allowed to continue.
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