Mercy Global Concern - 2004
Mercy Global Concern
Briefing Paper Number 2, June 2004
Girl Soldiers - Weapons of Mass Destruction
Recently General Dallaire (rtn) commander of the UN forces in
Rwanda during the genocide, said that the new weapons of mass destruction
are child soldiers, many of whom are girls and that the world needs
to pay more attention to there plight.
Hundreds of millions of children are suffering and dying from war,
violence, exploitation, neglect and all forms of abuse and discrimination.
Around the world children live under especially difficult circumstances:
permanently disabled or seriously injured by armed conflict; internally
displaced or driven from their countries as refugees.
Speaking about the situation of child soldiers Kofi Annan, Secretary
General of the United Nations had this to say...
" ... for too long, the use of child soldiers has been
seen as merely regrettable. We are here to ensure it is recognized
as intolerable."
Violence against children is unacceptable. Addressing this problem
requires the work of governments, UN agencies, non-governmental
organizations (NGO's) the private sector and individual men
and women. The experience of girls who are abducted and used as
child-soldiers has not been well documented. A recent study by
Yvonne Keairins, PhD, from the Quaker United Nations Office, goes
a long way to addressing the problem especially the plight of girls....
" The Fundamental needs of girls, who have been child soldiers,
have only recently been recognized. Girls are used in many different
ways by armed groups. Their demobilization and reintegration needs
are directly related to the specific ways that they were used.
For example, it has been assumed that most if not all girl soldiers
were raped and sexually abused by armed groups of which they were
a part. This study reveals that not all armed groups rape girls.
The stated position of some armed groups forbid sexually intimate
relationships. In some armed groups, contraception shots were required
and abortions performed even when the girl opposed this action.
In all the armed groups there were power differentials between
men and young girls and many of the girls agreed to sexually intimate
relationships when they recognized that it brought with it benefits
such as food, better living conditions, opportunities to ride rather
than walk long distances and other privileges.
Life as a Child Soldier
Life as a child soldier, for girls, often began with the information
that if you did not wish to stay with the guerrillas after three
days or some other established short period of time you would be
free to leave. The girl was assured of her right to leave before
she went with the armed group. If the request to leave was invoked
by the girl it was made known that it did not apply to her and
that she was there for three years and not three days.
The period of training varied from girl to girl. Some of the girls
received more training than others. Training on high bars was life
threatening because if you fell you would be seriously injured
or even killed. They were forced to run for hours, navigate through
tunnels, run in streams and perform rigorous physical exercises.
The time established for receiving weapons also varied. A pistol
might be received after a week and an AK-47 after three months.
The girls were taught the politics and philosophy of the movement
and used this information to collaborate with the people. Contraceptive
injections were routine and were administered even if a girl objected.
The injections were as much a part of the programme as the weapons.
All pregnancies were the fault of the girl and she was forced to
have an abortion. The girls quickly learned that life would be
easier if they had a relationship with the commander. They had
fewer duties to perform, they had privileges regarding supplies
and others granted you respect.
They discovered that the radio was more important than their life;
if you failed to protect the commander if you were his bodyguard,
you would be killed. Often they were made to kill others and at
any moment you could be killed. In Northern Uganda, the Lords Resistance
Army (LRA), the most notable of groups who abduct children, came
into existence in 1986 and is led by Joseph Kony, a charismatic
and malignant dictator who believes that he rules the country using
the ideology of the Ten Commandments. The L.R.A. specializes in
the slaughter of innocent people: A village is raided and then
burned to the ground, the inhabitants locked in their flaming houses;
a bus is shot up and passengers pulled out and hacked to death;
a health clinic is torched; high schools, grade schools and seminaries
are raided and their students abducted.
Abduction of children is the most depressing and horrific tactic
of the L.R.A. In the past 20 years some 20,000 children have been
seized. These recruits are forced into submission and then quickly
forced into committing atrocities. These could involve hacking
a classmate to death or setting their own village on fire and killing
relatives, so that they had no place to return. As the months pass,
the children lose track of who they are, their family and any kind
of moral code. They learn indifference and brutality. Children
are transformed into weapons of mass destruction - transformed
into killers.
Some facts:
- Today, there are some 300,000 children who are child soldiers.
Some of the children are as young as eight years old.
- Technological advances in weaponry and the proliferation of
small arms have contributed to the use of child soldiers. Lightweight
automatic weapons are simple to operate and can be used by children
just as easily as adults.
- Many children "join" the armed groups in the belief
that they will get food and security.
- Children are sometimes forced to commit atrocities against
their own families or neighbours. Such practices help to ensure
that
the child is "stigmatized" and unable to return to
their families.
Voices of Child soldier:
- 'An army recruitment unit arrived in my village.
Those who could not pay 3000 kyats had to join the army.' Zaw
Tun, 15
- "I was afraid of dying. My friends warned me that if the commanders
detected my fear they would kill me. So I pretended to be brave.' Charles,
12
- ' I just want to go home and be with my family' Christopher,
12
In May 2000, the United Nations General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol
to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children
in armed conflict. The new Protocol raises the minimum age for compulsory
recruitment from 15 to 18 and forbids anyone under 18 from participation
in hostilities.
The application of the protocol is less clear and a lot more work needs to
be done in this area, if we are to save the present generations from being
turned into Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Deirdre Mullan rsm
Director
MGC
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