HUMAN RIGHTS WATCHING
Over the last five years, the global campaign to stop the use of child soldiers has garnered an impressive series of successes, including new international legal standards, action by the UN Security Council and regional bodies, and pledges from various armed groups and governments to end the use of child soldiers. Despite gains in awareness and better understanding of practical policies that can help reduce the use of children in war, the practice persists in at least twenty countries, and globally, the number of child soldiers—about 300,000—is believed to have remained fairly constant.
As the end of wars in Sierra Leone, Angola, and elsewhere freed thousands of former child soldiers from active armed conflict, new conflicts in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire drew in thousands of new child recruits, including former child soldiers from neighboring countries. In some continuing armed conflicts, child recruitment increased alarmingly. In Northern Uganda, abduction rates reached record levels in late 2002 and 2003 as over 8,000 boys and girls were forced by the Lord’s Resistance Army to become soldiers, laborers, and sexual slaves. In the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where all parties to the armed conflict recruit and use children, some as young as seven, the forced recruitment of children increased so dramatically in late 2002 and early 2003 that observers described the fighting forces as “armies of children.”
In many conflicts, commanders see children as cheap, compliant, and effective fighters. They may be unlikely to stop recruiting child soldiers or demobilize their young fighters unless they perceive that the benefits of doing so outweigh the military advantage the children provide, or that the costs of continuing to use child soldiers are unacceptably high.
In theory, the benefits of ending child soldier use can include an enhanced reputation and legitimacy within the international community, and practical support for rehabilitation of former child soldiers, including educational and vocational opportunities. Possible negative consequences of continued child soldier use can include “shaming” in international fora and the media, restrictions on military and other assistance, exclusion from governance structures or amnesty agreements, and prosecution by the International Criminal Court or other justice mechanisms.
In practice, however, the use of child soldiers all too often fails to elicit action by the international community at all, apart from general statements of condemnation. Human Rights Watch is aware of no examples of military aid being cut off or other sanctions imposed on a government or armed group for its use of child soldiers. Conversely, when armed forces or groups do improve their practices, benefits also frequently fail to materialize. Although governments and armed groups receive public attention for commitments to end use of child soldiers, concrete support for demobilization and rehabilitation efforts often does not follow.
If the international community is serious about ending the use of child soldiers, it needs to build on the successes of the past five years, but with a sober eye for the obstacles that have stymied further progress. This essay gives an overview of developments over that period, both positive and negative, and offers suggestions on the way forward.
Renewed progress will depend on clearly and publicly identifying the responsible parties; providing financial and other assistance for demobilization and rehabilitation; and, most importantly, ensuring that violators pay a price should they continue to recruit and deploy child soldiers. Some concrete suggestions on how these remedies should be pursued, including the critical role that the U.N. Security Council is poised to play, are described in the concluding section of the essay.