RESCUING AFRICA'S CHILD SOLDIERS

It is estimated that about 300,000 children, some as young as seven years old, are being used as soldiers in conflicts around the world, in contravention of international law. In Africa, some 120,000 child soldiers are believed to be used across the continent. A conference of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in Africa was recently held in Mozambique.

By Antonio Gumende

July 1999

'Children make good fighters because they are young and want to show off. They think it is all a game, so they are fearless' - this is how a rebel commander fighting the government of President Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, justified the use of children in his ranks.

The quote was taken from a report circulated during the conference of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in Africa recently in Maputo.

'Why is it,' asked former Mozambique education minister, Graca Machel, 'that the worst of everything that is evil and inhuman is to be found in Africa? What is wrong with us Africans?'

Machel, who is now married to former South African president, Nelson Mandela, was making a plea in favour of the preservation of children's rights in armed conflict. Her involvement with child soldiers dates back to her report on the impact of armed conflicts on children to the United Nations General Assembly in 1996.

In her report, which chronicled the situation of children in conflicts, Machel dismissed the claim that children's involvement in conflict was an 'inevitable' reality. 'Children are regularly caught up in conflict because of conscious and deliberate decisions by adults,' she wrote. The Maputo meeting brought more than 200 delegates from governments and NGOs who discussed advocacy strategies in order to stop the use of children in armed conflicts during the three-day conference in the Mozambican capital.

The conference brought to Maputo such distinct personalities such the Special Representative of the United Nations for Children in Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, and the minister of gender, labour and social development of Uganda, Janat Mukwaya.

The choice of Maputo as the venue of the conference was deliberate: one reason is Machel's work on children for the United Nations. The other is Mozambique's painful experience of rehabilitating and healing thousands of children who were drafted into the 16-year armed conflict between the government and the Renamo rebels which claimed the lives of about one million Mozambicans, of whom 60% were children. The conflict ended in 1992 with the signing of the Rome General Peace Agreement.

The official speech delivered by Social Action Co-ordination Minister, Acucena Duarte, was silent on the number of children affected by the war in Mozambique, and Machel refrained from making specific references to the situation of child soldiers in Mozambique.

However, the Mozambican NGO 'Rebuilding Hope' circulated a document that indicated that 28% of the fighters in the ranks of the warring armies were under-age conscripts. Renamo was a notable culprit in the use of children in its ranks, with 40% of its fighters being under the age of 17 at the time of the demobilisation process which started after the peace agreement in 1992.

At the time some of the children had been in the Renamo ranks for more than five years. Elizabeth Bennett, of the Institute of Security Studies in South Africa, told the Maputo meeting that during the war in Mozambique, 'Renamo forces regularly kidnapped children from their homes, gave them basic military training and then sent them into battle against the Frelimo Government.'

Acucena mentioned that the Mozambican government always took the rights of children into account during the conflict. Thus when the first compulsory conscription law was introduced in 1978 it specifically prohibited the conscription of children under 18 years into military service. However, in a war situation the enforcement of this clause was not always possible. Unofficial estimates show that some 23% of the army were children under the age of 18.

But the problem of child soldiers is a concern worldwide. It is estimated that there are about 300,000 children, some as young as seven years old, being used as soldiers in conflicts around the world.

The use of children in conflict is a breach of international law. Article 38 of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that the state parties 'shall take all feasible measures' to refrain from recruiting 'persons who have not attained the age of 15 years into their armed conflict'. Likewise the African Charter on Human Rights and the Rights of the Child states that no child under the age of 18 should be drafted to take part in armed conflicts.

Surprisingly, when the minimum age of consent was being discussed in the mid- 1980s, the developed countries ganged up against the proposal to raise the minimum conscription age from 15 to 18. Ms Bennett points out that 'some delegations, including the British, Soviet Union, Canadian and American, argued for 15 years' on the grounds that this was 'in line with humanitarian law and with their national legal systems'. The Coalition says that one of its main priorities is to ensure that the minimum age for recruitment into the army under international humanitarian law be raised to 18 years.

In Africa in general and some ongoing conflicts in southern Africa in particular, the use of child soldiers is widespread. The Coalition estimates that some 120,000 children across the continent are being used as fighters in conflicts. The most affected countries are named as Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda.

The 'Maputo Declaration' adopted at the end of the meeting called on African states to refrain from providing sanctuary to rebel movements that use child soldiers in their ranks. The meeting proposed that the issue of child soldiers be included in the agenda of the meetings of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU). The meeting also resolved that child soldiers captured during a conflict should not be sentenced to death or life imprisonment without possibility for parole if they are under the age of 18. - Third World Network Features

About the writer: Antonio Gumende wrote the above article for Southern African News Features (30 April 1999), published by SARDC, Box 5690, 6 Bath Road, Belgravia, Harare, Zimbabwe. Tel:263-4-738694/5/6 Fax:263-4-738693 E-mail Editorial at editorial@sardc.net or the Webmaster.

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