|
Charity decries use of children in war
October 31, 1996
Web posted at: 8:40 p.m. ESTWASHINGTON (CNN) -- Some 250,000 children under age 18 -- some as young as seven -- are active participants in armed conflicts around the world, according to a report Thursday by Save The Children, an international children's advocacy group.
Among the chief reasons for the participation of children in combat is poverty.
"It is no coincidence that by far the overwhelming proportion of the 250,000 child soldiers are to be found in the very, very poorest sectors of the very poorest nations," said Save The Children President Charles F. MacCormack.
"The majority of these child soldiers can be found in Afghanistan, Angola, Southern Sudan, Somalia and until very recently, places like Mozambique and Sierra Leone, all of which are among the poorest ten countries on Earth."
"We must not close our eyes to the fact that child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators...They sometimes carry out the most barbaric acts of violence. But no matter what the child is guilty of, the main responsibility lies with us, the adults."
-- Retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu
MacCormack conceded that throughout history, children have participated as combat soldiers and the problem probably can not be eliminated.
But he said the international community can take steps to mitigate the problem, including continuing work to eliminate poverty, have donor governments focus on the issue of child soldiers and push all nations to institute birth records to determine age.
Save the Children is trying to get a United Nations pact that would raise the minimum recruitment age to 17. The 1979 Convention on the Rights of the Child sets it at 15, but not all countries follow it.
The report -- called "Children: The Invisible Soldiers" -- quotes from 27 studies, on fighting from Afghanistan to the former Yugoslavia. Most of the child soldiers are in Africa, but many are in Asia and Latin America.
A contributing factor, the study cites, is the ever- decreasing weight of weapons of war.
"Even a generation ago, battlefield weapons were heavy and cumbersome," said the report. "The development of lightweight automatic weapons -- archtypically, but by no means exclusively, the Soviet AK-47 -- has transformed the capacity of children to serve as combatants."
Some of the weapons weigh less than seven pounds (3 kg).
And the young soldiers of the world include girls as well as boys.
"The girl soldiers were stationed at the front in all military actions, and so bore the brunt of any casualties," said a case study on Cambodia, quoted in the report.
The use of girls as suicide bombers was cited in Sri Lanka and Lebanon.
At least one 5-year-old was reported in Khmer Rouge forces in Cambodia and another in Sierre Leone, while 7-year-olds were found in paramilitary groups in Sudan and among the Kurdish rebels fighting in Turkey.
"We must not close our eyes to the fact that child soldiers are both victims and perpetrators," wrote retired Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, in an introduction.
"They sometimes carry out the most barbaric acts of violence. But no matter what the child is guilty of, the main responsibility lies with us, the adults."
A similar report from the United Nations is due out later this year.
Related stories:
- Afghanistan's orphans survived war, still fighting for their lives - October 29, 1996
- Program aims to heal psyches of war-ravaged children - July 20, 1996
- Sarajevo mother teaches her child not to hate - December 25, 1996
Related sites:
Note: Pages will open in a new browser windowExternal sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.
Tell us what you think!
You said it...
© 1996 Cable News Network, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.