DOSSIER FIDES SPECIAL LENT 2004 “Humanity cannot close its eyes to such a tragedy! What have these children done to deserve such maltreatment?” (John Paul II - Message for Lent) 3 - CHILD SOLDIERS

Saturday, 27 March 2004

Inspired by Pope John Paul II message for Lent 2004, with the theme “Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name welcomes me”, Fides presents a series of Dossier on the tragic situation of children in the world today.


“TIN SOLDIERS”

Vatican (Fides Service) - They are not playing at war, they shoot to kill. They are the child soldiers fighting in three quarters of the wars going on in the world. About 300.000 boys aged 7 to 17 are involved in some 36 bloody conflicts ,12 being fought in Africa.
Experience of death which children live because of adults without scruples who employ them with violence and blackmail to live traumatic experiences. Many of these stories start when children lose their parents in a war. Others are abducted from their families, recruited on the streets or threatened with violence on their family.
Very often they are beaten, threatened, drugged, forced to be spies, trained and pushed into committing acts of violence against people of their own villages so there is no way of escape for these illegal mini armies.
They are “children at war” used in the brutal and inhuman task of open paths in mined areas. Walking ahead of the troops children step on a mine and as they are killed in the explosion they eliminate the danger for those walking behind.
One less mine in these cases means one less child, or in the best of cases mutilated for life. Canon meat: an old phrase which is spine chilling when referred to the flesh of children for ever traumatised by violence.
According to the United Nations two million children have been killed in wars in the last decade and four million have been seriously mutilated. These alarming figures tell of the dimension of this “massacre of the innocents” including children forced to become executioners.

Rights not to be forgotten
If a child learns to use a weapon, to murder, to live the life of a warrior, the responsibility is always that of the adults who led him to do these things, making him live this sort of life and smothering any hope of his future reinsertion in society from which he was torn.
In the face of this phenomenon which, according to military experts, instead of decreasing is increasing, the United Nations Organisation and many human rights organisations are moving to impose sanctions, including trade embargoes, on countries who break international conventions on human rights and children’s rights, starting with the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In some countries children over 15 are allowed to fight in war but many human rights associations want the limit raised to 18 years.
This would help not only to protect more children but also to stem the proliferation of firearms and admonish the countries, about 30 to 44 in which children are involved in war.
The recent episodes of terrorism reveal a widespread presence of minors in violent action not only in individual countries but situations of violence which are part of a global project with local bases where minors are also employed. A fact which confirms the consolidated certainty that violence has no flag, it has only a colour, the colour of blood.

Where children are trained to kill
Colombia, Myanmar , Sri Lanka , Afghanistan, Somalia, Burundi and Democratic Congo there are a total number of 150,000 child soldiers. However the problem is even more widespread and some say it affects three quarters of the wars being fought on our planet.

Asia
Myanmar is top of the list in Asia for the number of child soldiers, circa 70.000 . The boys are the most obedient and docile part of the government troops: they are used in many services; from kitchen duties to front line fighting, victims of physical abuse and privations at the minimum hint of rebellion.
In Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers armed opposition forces has many minors in its ranks although the government denies the fact. In the ranks of this “under 18” army there are also girls trained as suicide bombers because girls would be less suspected by the authorities.
In Nepal it is estimated that children form 30% of the armed wing of the Nepalese Communist Party.
In Iraq in the 1990s, as many as 23, 000 minors aged 12 to 17 anni were trained in military groups “ Saddam Youth”.
In Afghanistan, the Taleban uses pupils from Koran schools in nearby Pakistan and in the case of emergency, for example the US invasion, the national Taleban troops were reinforced with very young boys.

Africa
The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers says children fight in wars in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Democratic Congo.
In Sub-Saharan Africa 120,000 children some only 7 years old, fight in wars.
In Uganda about 10.000 have been abducted in northern Uganda and enlisted by the Lord Resistance Army rebels.
In Kenya Hutu street children were recruited to fight in the years of the Rwanda-Burundi war.
In Sierra Leone more than 5,000 children are on both sides of the battle field with government and opposition troops. After peace talks, the RUF rebels released 700 child soldiers but their parents will not take them back because they are ashamed of the crimes their children committed. In Sudan there are 10,000 child soldiers most of them told to fight or their families would be hurt.

Latin America
In Latin America, Colombia is the country with the highest number of children involved in conflicts: some 14, 000 boys and also girls, even ten year olds, fight in armies funded by drug trafficking. “Minors are used in war not only to fight, but also as porters, lookout, spies, sex slaves. The problem is growing and in every new conflict there is a risk of minors being involved in the hostilities” said Casey Kelso, co-ordinator of the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers which 111 nations have joined, at least formally. But not all, as we have seen, respect the commitment taken. (M.F.D’A.) (Agenzia Fides 27/3/2004 - Righe 90 - Parole 1107)


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