Nations Hail Draft of Historic Accord on Children Warriors

Published in The Manila Times

UNITED NATIONS-An international accord aimed at prohibiting the use of child soldiers was hailed as a landmark achievement by human rights groups, LTN Secretary General Kofi Annan and US President Bill Clinton.

After six years of wrangling, negotiators in Geneva on Friday reached agreement on raising the age for niihtary conscription and combat to 18 years from 15 years.

Government armies, however, may recruit volunteers, who have parental consent, as young as 16 years of age but not send them into combat zones. This provision was a compromise sought by Britain and the United States, which take volunteers from 17 and 16, respectively.

Armed rebel groups may neither recruit youths under 18 nor send them into combat, although enforcement is questionable.

UN officials estimate about 300,000 young people under 18 are now involved in wars around the world.

Optional protocol Annan called the agreement”a most significant step towards eliminating any role for children in warfare” as well as a “highly effective instrument for the protection of children in armed conflicts.”

The draft accord, to be approved by the UN General Assembly before it is open to signature, is an “optional protocol” to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, drawn up in 1990, and which has 191 signatory nations.

The United States and Somalia are the only two countries not to have ratified the convention, although Washington has signed the treaty and will be allowed to join the protocol.

President Clinton, traveling in California Friday, said he was “very pleased with the final result.”

“By addressing forced recruitment and the conduct of armed rebel groups, this agreement strikes at the heart of the problem of child soldiers,” Clinton said.

He noted, however, the US Senate, which has turned down most international treaties, would have to approve the protocol. The United States currently has less than 3,060 soldiers under 18 among its 1.2 million on active duty.

New standard
The New York-based Human Rights Watch said the accord marks the first time the United States, which has sent 17-year-olds into combat zones, ever agreed to change its practices m order to support a human rights standard.”

“By establishing 18 as the minimum age for participation in armed conflict, the treaty corrects an anomaly in international law regarding children’s rights,” it said in a statement.

“Many concessions were made to accommodate the United States,” said Jo Becker, the director for children’s rights advocacy for Human Rights Watch. “The US should now move quickly to ratify and implement the agreement.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson issued a statement welcoming the “spirit of cooperation” in the protocol and called for a “speedy process.”

According to the agreement, soldiers under 18 must be provided special protection and nations must ‘take all feasible measures” to ensure child soldiers do not enter combat.

Volunteer fighters The protocol is also meant to include guerrilla movements, which have frequently raised child armies to wave their conflicts. Children have been recruited to rebel militars throughout Africa, as well as in places like Colombia and Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has said.

But Becker told reporters in Geneva that “the Protocol is much weaker than we would have liked.”

“We’ve always said that the only, way to ensure that children are not used in ‘war is not to re ‘t them in crul the first place,” she said.

Olara Otunnu, UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said he had already received “commitments from several guerrilla groups not to recruit, not to deploy below 18.”

He told a news conference that the accord “strengthens our hands in terms of advocacy and we can put in place arrangements for more effective monitoring of conduct on the ground.”

But the UN Children’s Fund said it believed the agreeme . nt contained “weak” language and did not go far
enough.

REUTERS/AP