Caledoniyya

Earlier this week the London daily newspaper, Al-Hayat, revealed that a number of factions in Lebanon are recruiting and training child soldiers.

While the factions and youth movements deny providing the children with military training, some children boast to their friends that they are well acquainted with the use of arms because they have received military training from certain factions.

The following chilling account given by a woman after the May 2008 clashes in Beirut, leaves little doubt that the events lie beyond childish ramblings, as “children armed to the teeth” patrolled the capital:

Five boys… came into my home. One of them spoke to me rudely, and I said to him, ‘Shame on you, you are the same age as my son.’ He asked me, ‘How old is your son?’ and I answered ‘Seventeen.’ [The boy] replied, ‘Your son is older [than me].

The utilization of child warriors is not new; indeed, during the Lebanese Civil War fighting militias would enlist volunteers aged 14 and over to dispatch supplies to the front lines, and provide them with military training.

Since 2001, the participation of child soldiers has been reported in 21 on-going or recent armed conflicts in almost every region of the world.

The problem is most serious in Africa, where children as young as nine have been involved in armed conflicts, although children are also used as soldiers in various Asian countries and in parts of Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.

Robbed of their childhood and frequently subjected to extreme violence, child soldiers participate in all aspects of warfare: from manning look-out posts and spying, to wielding AK-47s and M-16s, and participating in suicide missions.

The children are generally abducted or recruited by force, before being compelled to follow orders under threat of death.

According to Human Rights Watch, children are most likely to become child soldiers if they are poor, separated from their families, displaced from their homes, living in a combat zone or have limited access to education.

Advances in the technological aspects of weaponry and the proliferation of small arms also contributes to the issue, as lightweight automatic weapons are simple to operate, often easily accessible, and can be used by children as easily as adults. 

That the children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against their own family or neighbors in order to ensure that the child is “stigmatized” and unable to return to his or her home community, renders the process all the more abhorrent.

For other children, social pressure becomes the motivating factor, as the article in Al-Hayat explains:

Ahmad is a 14-year-old from Bab Al-Tabaneh in Tripoli. His father, a soldier in the Lebanese army, was martyred in Nahr Al-Bared during the battle between Fath Al-Islam and the Lebanese army a year ago. Ahmad has a Lebanese army uniform, a gift from one of his father’s friends. After he returned to the village without his father, he began to wear this uniform every Wednesday – the day on which his father would report for army duty… After saluting himself in the mirror and making sure that he was ready, he would go to his father’s picture in the living room, stand before it, and salute again… He refused to take off the uniform until sundown.

According Ahmad’s mother, she did not grow too concerned about his behavior until he began to assume a proactive stance:

His enthusiasm grew when he heard the talk about children participating in the May 2008 attack on Beirut. The situation deteriorated with the spread of violence to Bab Al-Tabaneh and Ba’al Muhsin; Ahmad expressed a willingness to fight, for any side that would take him. His primary goal was to carry arms, and he was willing to join any side that would take a strong young boy without asking about his age.

Ahmad’s mother eventually decided to take advantage of her Canadian citizenship and leave the country with her son.

To counter the rising use of child soldiers, steps to curtail the practice of using child soldiers are being taken.

In 2000, the United Nations adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which prohibits the forced recruitment of children under the age of 18 or their use in hostilities. To date, it has been ratified by more than 110 countries.

Equally, the ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor prohibits the forced or compulsory recruitment of children under the age of 18 for use in armed conflict. It has been ratified by over 150 countries.

Another measure comprises demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) programs that specifically target child soldiers, which have been established in a number of countries, both during and after armed conflict and enable former child soldiers to acquire new skills and return to their communities.

However, the programs lack funds and adequate resources, and sustained long-term investment is needed if they are to be effective.

In addition, despite increasing recognition of girls’ involvement in armed conflict, girls are often deliberately or inadvertently excluded from DDR programs.

Girl soldiers are frequently subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence as well as being involved in combat and other roles, and in some cases they are stigmatized by their home communities when they return.

Figures from national DDR programs reflect the extraordinarily low figures for girls’ participation: in Liberia, only 3,000 girls were officially demobilized through the formal DDR process that ended in November 2004.

Around another 8,000 did not take part.

In the the Democratic Republic of Congo, just 15% of the total number of girls estimated to have been involved in the conflict were officially demobilized by the end of 2006 when the national DDR program drew to a close.

Despite the endeavours of the United Nations and the ILO, the drive towards a a “straight-18” standard for military recruitment is still facing opposition, with calls in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom to raise the minimum recruitment age to 18 being resisted on the grounds of manpower requirements.

In the USA, following a dramatic number of under-18s joining the military increased enlistment bonuses were introduced and educational standards for recruits lowered.

On a positive note, over the past four years, the minimum age for voluntary recruitment into the armed forces has been raised to 18 in Chile, Italy, Jordan, the Maldives, Sierra Leone, Slovenia and South Korea.

For further information on child soldiers, visit The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and Human Rights Watch.

[Images via: ~Aphrodite and Henry Agudelo/Fundacion Dos Mundos.]