Doc. 8696

3 April 2000

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

Opinion1

Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

Rapporteur: Rapporteur: Mr Csaba Tabajdi, Hungary, Socialist Group

I.       The Committee’s conclusions

1.       The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights fully supports the report by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee. However, it wishes to see the following amendments to the report:

Amendment A:

In paragraph 5, indent 1, replace the words “enlistment of children and their participation in armed conflicts” by “enlistment and participation of children under 18 years of age, both girls and boys, in armed forces”.

Amendment B:

In paragraph 5, after the second indent, add two further indents:

Amendment C:

After paragraph 5, add a new paragraph, worded as follows:

Amendment D:

In paragraph 5, after the words “member states of the Council of Europe”, add the words “and states enjoying observer status with the Council of Europe”;

and in paragraph 7 amend the introduction to read: “The Assembly also urges Council of Europe member states and states enjoying observer status with the Council of Europe:”

Amendment E:

In paragraphs 6, 8 and 9, replace the words “the international community” with the words “the 190 states that have ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”.

Amendment F:

At the end of paragraph 9, add a new paragraph, worded as follows:

II.       Explanatory memorandum

by Mr Tabajdi, Rapporteur

1.       Following the adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly of Recommendation 1286 (1996) on a European strategy for children, the Council of Europe, in the framework of its activities relating to children, is trying to follow a comprehensive, consistent and co-ordinated approach. The Council of Europe Programme for Children, launched in May 1999 at the 102nd Session of the Committee of Ministers, is an integral part of the European strategy for social cohesion, the preparation and speedy implementation of which are priorities for member States. It should be noted that all Council of Europe member States have ratified the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child, and that the principles of this fundamental text – provision/prevention, protection and participation – are central to the activities carried out at European level. The Council of Europe Programme is furthermore intended to raise public awareness of, and to promote, children’s rights. The rights of the child are an area in which the Council of Europe undeniably has achievements, among them the European Social Charter (in particular Article 7), the European Convention on the Exercise of Children’s Rights and the recent Recommendation of the Committee on Ministers to member States, Recommendation No R(98)8 adopted on 18 September 1998, on children’s participation in family and social life.

2.       Children who become soldiers before reaching “emotional” maturity suffer devastating psychological problems. The number of casualties among child soldiers tends to be high, as children are intrinsically less cautious than adults and succumb to battle wounds more frequently. Participation in armed conflict is inevitably dangerous; it puts the child’s health, safety and moral development at risk and therefore violates Article 32 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

3.       Girls are also used as soldiers, although in smaller numbers than boys. Girls have fought in Europe, particularly in the ranks of the KLA in Kosovo and the PKK in Turkey, where it is believed that they accounted for 10% of the total number of child soldiers. Not only are girl soldiers exposed to the same dangers as their male comrades-in-arms, but they must often also endure sexual abuse at the same time as fighting, and consequently suffer sexually-transmitted diseases, pregnancies, childbirth and abortions.

4.       Although international law currently sets 15 years as the minimum age for enlistment and participation in armed conflicts, there is widespread agreement that this age limit is too low and that it must be raised to 18 years. Although most countries prohibit the recruitment and participation of under-18s, others have signalled their intention to continue to recruit children aged 16 or 17. The United States, for instance, which continues to oppose fiercely the threshold of 18 years for enlistment and participation, itself enlists a small number of 17-year old minors who are on the point of completing their secondary education (according to Pentagon data, there were 2,880 such recruits in 1997, out of a total of 1.3 million men and women in the active armed forces). However, tens of thousands of 17-year old children are technically incorporated in the American armed forces each year in a programme allowing them to postpone the beginning of military training for several weeks or even months.

5.       The United Kingdom, which continues to recruit 16-year-old school-leavers, actually encourages young people to start the recruitment process while still in school, leaving the formal enlistment to a later date. The United Kingdom recently held a recruitment campaign for under-18s. If a 16-year old signs up for a standard service period of 22 years, he or she has the right to withdraw after three years. However, the three-year period runs only from the recruit’s eighteenth birthday: this is known as the “five-year trap”. British soldiers aged under 18 fought and died in both the Falklands conflict and the Gulf War.

6.       In addition to the United States, which has observer status, and the United Kingdom, which is a member state, the following member and observer states have legislation permitting them to recruit children under the age of 18 into their armed forces: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland.

7.       There are a number of reasons why children under 18 years should neither be enlisted and participate in armed conflicts, nor be enlisted into armies. First, the statutory age of majority conferring entitlement to vote is 18 in all the Council of Europe’s member and observer states. It marks the formal transition from childhood to adulthood. For the individual, reaching one’s majority implies moral and legal responsibilities. Secondly, this is the age stipulated in the generic definition of the child enshrined in the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and used in international humanitarian law.

8.       Although, as has been pointed out, international human rights law and international humanitarian law currently set 15 as the minimum age for enlistment and participation in armed conflicts, this anomaly is about to be corrected. The Working Group of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which is preparing a draft Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on involvement of children in armed conflicts, reached agreement on 21 January 2000 on the age of 18 years for enlistment and participation in armed conflicts as well as for recruitment into armed forces.

9.       Although the United Nations has in the past tacitly allowed under 18-years to serve as peacekeepers, this practice has now been ended, following the UN General Assembly’s declaration to this effect on 29 October 1998. The International Conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, UNICEF, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Ms Graça Machel (from Mozambique), who is the UN Secretary General’s Expert on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children and winner of the 1998 North-South prize, and Mr Olara A. Otunnu (from Uganda), who is the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, have contributed powerfully to the achievement of this goal.

10.        Finally, it is incongruous that a number of member states which proclaim the importance of respect for human rights in the world are not prepared to practise what they preach when it comes to the rights of their own children. In this regard, an interesting parallel can be drawn between recruitment into the armed forces and into the police force, these two branches of the State being typically the ones authorised to use force in certain circumstances. For example, in the Netherlands, a country known to follow the American position, the minimum age for joining the police force was recently raised from 16 to 19: it appears that the change was primarily motivated by concern about the maturity of young officers. The minimum age for recruitment into the armed forces, on the other hand, was only raised to 17. Likewise, in the United States, where 17-year-olds can enlist in the army, the minimum age for joining the police force is generally 18, and, in many cases, 21; in the United Kingdom, the minimum age for police recruits is 18.

11.       The most effective means of preventing children from participating in hostilities is simply to put an end to all forms of recruitment of boys and girls under 18 years of age, in the active armed forces.

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Reporting committee: Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee

Committee for opinion: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights

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

Opinion approved by the committee on 3 April 2000

Secretaries to the committee: Mr Plate, Ms Coin and Ms Kleinsorge

1 See Doc 8676