Doc. 8676

22 March 2000

Campaign against the enlistment of child soldiers and their participation in armed conflicts

Report

Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee

Rapporteur: Ms Elisa Pozza Tasca, Italy, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers’ Group

Summary

Children are involved in armed conflicts. They are most often victims thereof and sometimes also combatants enlisted or conscripted in contempt of their rights. The Rapporteur invites member states to declare the forced enlistment of children under 18 years of age to be illegal, to ratify the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child which would forbid the recruitment and participation in armed conflicts of all children below the age of 18 and to support any measure at international level to eradicate the child soldier phenomenon throughout the world

I.       Draft resolution

1.       The Assembly supports the action carried out for many years by its Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee to defend and promote children’s rights; it confirms its strong commitment to further their cause, be they children from within or outside Europe, as already stated in its Recommendation 1286 (1996) on a European Strategy for Children.

2.       In the modern world, children are involved in armed conflicts in about fifty countries; they are most often victims of them and sometimes also combatants enlisted or conscripted in contempt of their rights, their physical integrity and their lives. 300 000 child soldiers of under 18 years of age, girls and boys, are thought to be taking part in armed conflicts all over the world. The recent conflicts in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo yesterday and Chechnya today, provide evidence of this.

3.       The phenomenon is growing as a result of changes in the nature of conflicts, most of which are lengthy civil wars, or wars between adjoining regions, fought with inexpensive, light firearms. Once enlisted, children become the instruments of war. The legal rules governing armed conflicts are not observed and even states with a longstanding democratic tradition do not protect children’s rights as they should.

4.       It is the duty of the Council of Europe member states to react if they do not wish to see barbarism invade their societies and lose their common fundamental values. The international community cannot wait for a hypothetical consensus to end the arms trade; it must reply by declaring the forced enlistment of child soldiers of under 18 to be illegal, in the same way that anti-personnel mines were banned.

5.       The Assembly therefore calls upon the member states of the Council of Europe:

i.       to undertake to end the enlistment of children and their participation in armed conflicts for good in their own countries, by modifying their legislation and current practice if necessary;

ii.       to express this undertaking at international level by ratifying:

6.       The Assembly calls upon the international community and especially the Council of Europe member states, to support, in particular through voluntary contributions, the Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict appointed by the Secretary General of the UN in his initiatives and actions to eradicate this phenomenon.

7.       The Assembly also urges its member states:

i       to allow and foster, everywhere and at all times, access to humanitarian aid for the civilian population in the event of armed conflict, taking particular account of children’s needs;

ii.       to give priority to the protection of children in processes to restore peace and in post-war co-operation programmes, whether bilateral or multilateral or conducted by international organisations.

8.       The Assembly calls upon the international community to draw up policies to aid development in countries where there is conflict, in order to

i       stop the recruitment of child soldiers and demobilise those who have already been enlisted;

ii       ensure that measures are taken for the children’s physical, psychological and social rehabilitation;

iii       and foster their reintegration in civilian life and, in particular, in a suitable education system.

9.       Finally, the Assembly urges the international community to promote education for peace and tolerance through awareness-raising campaigns, particularly in countries where the risk of conflict is high.

II.       Explanatory memorandum by the Rapporteur

1.       Approximately 300 000 children throughout the world are currently taking part in conflicts - a potentially explosive situation. Whether enlisted legally or by force or even kidnapped, they are all compelled to carry out acts of brutality, the ultimate expression of contempt for children’s rights in the world.

2.       At a time when the tenth anniversary of the New York Convention on the Rights of the Child is being celebrated with much ado, children unfortunately continue to be the predestined victims of world society. Over the past ten years, many countries have used child soldiers, sometimes enlisting children of under 6 years of age. Children of under 16 have fought in twenty-five countries, in other words, they have taken part in more than half of the wars currently being waged.

3.       Unicef’s statistics are alarming: over the last ten years, two million children have been killed in recent conflicts and four million children have been disabled or mutilated; twelve million children have been evacuated or become refugees, uprooted from their communities. A far higher number of children have suffered from the destruction of harvests, hospitals or schools as a result of war.

4.       In Sierra Leone, the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) rebels who carried out the coup kidnapped 2 000 children aged between 7 and 14 and forced them to fight. It has been calculated that young girls make up a considerable proportion of the armed opposition forces in Ethiopia. Many young girls were enlisted in the ranks of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army), and during the final days of the conflict in Kosovo, we saw new forms of child exploitation and forced child labour for military purposes: some children were working in coal mines to supply fuel for the electrical power station in Pristina, others were being used as human shields, and still others as blood banks for wounded Serbs. And what can be said about the under-eighteens who fought and died in the Falklands and the Gulf wars, not to mention the current conflict in Chechnya, the horrors if which are being carefully hidden from us?

5.       The United Nations documents on countries which authorise the enlistment of minors under eighteen years of age are extremely worrying: one would never have thought that the list of countries would include the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Iceland, Luxembourg, Norway and the Netherlands. That the United States should appear on the list is not surprising, as they and Somalia are the only countries in the world not to have approved the New York Convention.

6.       Technological developments, the proliferation of inexpensive, small-calibre arms and the fact that conflicts are drawn out are among the explanations for the increasingly frequent enlisting of child soldiers.

7.       The studies carried out by the United Nations on the effect of armed conflicts on children show that most of the child soldiers enlisted come from poor families or families in very difficult circumstances in rural areas where there are no opportunities for education or training and the standard of living is very low, and from other fringe groups (street children, refugees and children who have been evacuated). These children are therefore exploited both in peacetime and in war.

8.       Apart from the obvious risk of being killed or seriously wounded in combat, child soldiers suffer more than others from the harshness of military life. Malnutrition, respiratory infections and skin diseases are frequent, as are venereal diseases, Aids and auditory and visual problems. The younger children suffer from malformations of the back and shoulders caused by the excessive weights they are made to carry.

9.       The situation is critical and we can no longer wait for government policies to succeed in ending the international arms trade for good, ending the armed conflicts and the subsequent recruitment of children. Measures must be taken to ensure that in future, young people will no longer take part in armed conflicts, because “war is not child’s play”.

10.       International law sets the minimum age for enlistment in armed forces and participation in hostilities at 15. This age limit, decided on after the second world war, very often coincides with the end of compulsory schooling in western countries. The Convention on the Rights of the Child also sets the minimum age for being recruited and taking part in hostilities at 15.

11.       In 1992, on the day devoted to the problems of children taking part in armed conflicts held by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, it was proposed to draw up an optional protocol to the United Nations convention. This protocol would raise the minimum age for enlistment in armed forces and participation in hostilities to 18.

12.       On 25 August 1999, the United Nations made a similar statement when it adopted Resolution 1260, in which it once again condemned states which used children in armed conflicts in violation of international law and outlined a number of strategies, such as truces, which states could implement during conflicts. The UN also recommended that the Commission on Human Rights should draw up a draft optional protocol to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child raising the age of enlistment in armed forces to 18.

13.       The Secretary General of the United Nations then recommended to the Security Council that the minimum age for recruitment and participation in armed conflicts be set at 18, 21 for the United Nations peacekeeping force (and in no circumstances under 18).

14.       Under the Statute setting up the International Criminal Court, adopted in Rome on July 1998, the use and recruitment of minors of under 15 years of age are considered to be war crimes. Only eight countries, including Italy, have ratified it and it has to be ratified by sixty countries before it can enter into force.

15.       The recent ILO Convention No. 182 (1999) includes the “forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict” among the worst forms of child labour alongside slavery, the sale of children, serfdom, and so on, showing the seriousness and extent of this scourge.

16.       In Geneva, a “Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers” has been formed by forty-seven European countries to raise governments’ awareness and enable Europe to play a leading role in the fight to eliminate this tragic phenomenon.

17.       The coalition held an international conference in Berlin from 18 to 20 October 1999 at which it drew up a document requesting European governments to:

-       ratify and implement the following instruments:

-       aid and provide technical assistance to other states so that they may ratify and apply these instruments and relevant regional provisions;

-       foster the wide dissemination of these instruments within and outside their own countries;

-       envisage, in those states which currently recruit minors of under 18, the possibility of raising the age of recruitment to 18 at least and, at the same time, give priority to recruiting those who are oldest in compliance with Article 38 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child;

-       take measures to protect child soldiers against extrajudicial, illegal or arbitrary executions, illegal imprisonment and ill-treatment by any party to the conflict;

-       guarantee that minors of under 18 may not be sentenced to capital punishment, or life imprisonment without the possibility of early release, for crimes they have committed;

-       and guarantee that any emergency legislation restricting civil liberties will protect minors of under 18 in accordance with international law on justice for minors.

18.       The rapporteur considers that the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee and the whole Assembly should endorse these proposals and act upon them.

19.       Member states should also ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the final version of which was adopted in Geneva on 21 January 2000, which sets the age for taking part in armed conflicts at 18, bans the conscription of minors under 18 and commits states to gradually raising the minimum age for joining national armed forces.

20.       Together, we shall therefore give meaning to the New York Convention anniversary celebrations and reassert the significance of our predecessors pioneering role in the defence of human rights in 1949.

21.       In addition to the personal work each of us can do in our own countries, we can support the efforts made at international level, such as the action of the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflicts and any other international monitoring initiative which enables information to be updated annually and a country-by-country analysis to be made of legislation on the recruitment and use of minors and its application.

22.       As we have already stated in the European Strategy for Children, our commitment is to all children, inside and outside Europe. It is our duty to be in the frontline. That also applies to states which are not directly concerned and which therefore do not make use of child soldiers.

23.       Taking a stand for the principle of the defence of children’s rights is not a futile gesture. As we have already seen from the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, if a ban is to be effective, it is vital that the international community as a whole ceases to use the explosive devices, and not only those member states that have used them thoughtlessly and irresponsibly over the past years.

Reporting committee: Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee

Budgetary implications: none

Reference to committee: Doc. 8345 and Reference No. 2372 of 30 March 1999

Draft resolution adopted by the committee on 15 March 2000 with 1 abstention

Members of the committee: Mr Cox (Chairman), Mrs Ragnarsdóttir, Mr Hegyi, Mrs Gatterer (Vice-Chairs), Mrs Albrink , MM. Alis Font, Arnau, Mrs Belohorská, Mrs Biga-Friganovic, Mrs Björnemalm, Mrs Böhmer, Mr Cesario, Mrs Chikhradze, MM. Christodoulides, Chyzh, Dees, Dhaille, Duivesteijn, Evin, Flynn, Gibula, Glesener, Gregory, Ms Gülek, MM. Gusenbauer, Haack, Hancock, Mrs Høegh, Mr Hrebenciuc, (Alternate: Mr Paslaru), Mrs Jirousova, Mr Kalos, Mrs Kulbaka, Mrs Laternser, Mr Liiv, Mrs Lotz, Mrs Luhtanen, MM. Lupu, Mrs Markovska, MM. Marmazov (Alternate: Mr Baburin), Martelli, Marty, Mattei (Alternate: Mr Birraux), Monfils, Mozgan, Mularoni, Mrs Näslund, Mr Ouzky, Mrs Paegle, Mrs Poptodorova, Mrs Pozza Tasca, Mrs Pulgar, MM. Raskinis, Rizzi (Alternate: Mr Polenta), Santkin, Sharapov, Skoularikis, Mrs Stefani, MM. Surján, Tahir, Telek, Troncho, Vella, Mrs Vermot-Mangold (Alternate: Mr Gross), MM. Volodin, Voronin, Wójcik

NB:       The names of those members present at the meeting are printed in italics.

Secretaries to the committee: Mr Dronov a.i., Mrs Meunier and Mrs Clamer