Children With Guns

Lesson Plans for Teaching about Child Soldiers

2008-05-11T21:20:00.001-07:00

Child Soldier Relief website has many lesson plans for teachers interested in talking about child soldiers with their students. Here is the link.

Charles Taylor Trial - Child Soldier Cross-Examined

2008-05-11T21:18:00.000-07:00

Cross examination of a former child soldier at the trial of Charles Taylor, read here.

232 Children Released

2008-05-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) praised on Friday the release of 232 child soldiers last week, following eight months of negotiations between the government, civil society, UN agencies and other players with the dissident faction of the Palipehutu-FNL.

Of course, this is just a drop in the bucket when you take into account all of the child soldiers currently employed. 250,000. Possibly more. Still, it's a start.

Another Child Soldier Recruiter Charged!

2008-05-11T21:12:00.000-07:00

The International Criminal Court published an arrest warrant Tuesday for Congolese militia leader Bosco Ntaganda, who is wanted for the alleged forced conscription of child soldiers.

The trial of Charles Taylor still continues and I believe it's outcome will tell us alot about future arrests of military leaders with charges for recruiting child soldiers.

Read more here.

2008-04-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

When the Liberian civil war ended in 2003, these kids were gaunt, hardened, physically and mentally wounded children. Now in their late teens and early twenties, they are radiant, generous, responsible young people. They have resumed their schooling, extricated themselves from the drug-and-alcohol culture of their war buddies, and are working hard to earn the respect of a suspicious community.

This article tells us what factors helped these former child soldiers.

The group that these children belong to, Future Guardians of Peace, has a website here.

Nepal's Children Trade Guns for Tools

2008-04-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

This is a great story giving us some hope about former child soldiers. Teaching them a trade and helping to reintegrate them into communities.

Read the article here.

The Story of One Child Soldier

2008-04-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

UNICEF tells the story of Sarah, a former child soldier.

Sarah, who is now 17, was one such child soldier. She was abducted by the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army when she was just 7 years old, and was forced into sexual slavery. Her abductor let her go when she became pregnant. Now Sarah cares for her small boy and ekes out a living as a tailor. With the help of UNICEF and partner organizations, she was able to be reunited with her family. Her brother, who was also abducted, sadly most likely died while being held captive.

Read more about her life here.

Understanding Child Soldiers

2008-04-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

"Imagine not being able to dream. Imagine that you grew up expecting to die, grew up expecting not to live past 20 or 21." Imagining this situation is necessary in order to begin to understand the life of a child soldier, journalist Jimmie Briggs told a packed auditorium in Independence Hall yesterday.

Briggs, a distinguished journalist, advocate and author, spoke about his own experiences reporting on children in warfare and the parallels he sees between war-effected youth around the world and children in America affected by violence.

Briggs has traveled extensively in war-torn areas of the world as a reporter for publications such as Life, The Washington Post and The New York Times Magazine. His travels eventually led him to the theme of his 2005 book "Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go To War."

During the lecture, Briggs described children as young as 8 years old going into battle under the influence of drugs, forced to walk before their comrades to detonate mines and even made to kill family members.

Briggs said women and children are the first to suffer and the most severely-affected in war. Children suffer on both sides of the conflict as victims and as perpetrators of violence, he said, and women and young girls face gender-based violence and sexual crimes.

"Unfortunately, we live in a time in history when rape in war is commonplace, it's almost inceptive or tolerated," he said.

Briggs showed a 10-minute clip of his first documentary, which is still a work in progress. The film segment contained images of children in Africa and Sri Lanka marching in formation, carrying guns and performing military exercises. One picture showed a smiling young child smoking a cigarette, posing with other young soldiers in the background and barbed wire in the foreground. Others showed young children and teens firing automatic weapons or lying dead in the streets.

"It's appropriate that you see these stories, that you see these images because this is what is happening around the world … to millions of young people who are much younger than you all are," Briggs said in introducing the material.

Read the entire article here.

Child Soldier Art

2008-03-25T21:35:00.000-07:00

Image used without permissions.

Fred Mutebi, an artist from Uganda, has an art therapy program called "Let Art Talk" that helps survivors of war etc, including child soldiers.

For original article go here.
For "Let's Talk Art" program homepage go here.

Online Talk Show about Child Soldier Fight

2008-03-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

Online talk show hosts Sam Childers, the man who rescues Child Soldiers. For more info on listing go here. Articles quoted below.

Pastor and freedom fighter Sam Childers, the son of a Pennsylvania iron worker,who rescues children soldiers in Uganda and Sudan will be the guest on News Talk Online on Tuesday March 25.

Childers is a former biker who rode with the Hell's Angels and now fights to rescue children during military-style rescue missions.

"I always liked to fight. Still do. I'm a preacher but I still like to fight," Childer says.

Since 1987, the border of Sudan and Uganda has been ravaged by rebels called the Lord's Resistance Army, which is headed by Joseph Kony . The rebellion is one of Africa's longest-running conflicts. When Jan Egeland, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief met Kony in 2006, he told Dateline NBC that Kony's terror is "terror like no other."

"I've been in a hundred countries," Egeland said. "I've been working with human rights, peace, and humanitarian problems for 25 years. I was shocked to my bones, seeing what happened in Uganda. For me, this is one of the biggest scandals of our time and generation."

Kony says he is a spokesperson of God and a spirit medium. He commands the LRA to murder, rape, maim and destroy villages. He has captured over 20,000 children and has turned them into killing-machines or sex slaves. Over 2 million villagers have been displaced and 10s of thousands have been killed. But Childers and his militia are fighting back, rescuing child soldiers and setting them free.

Children's Village Angels of East Africa is a Children's Village for orphans located in south Sudan and founded by Childers. It rescues, shelters and restores the lives of children caught in the crossfire of the rebel atrocities. The organization has been operating for a decade, saving the lives of hundreds of children and renewing hope in a region where it had all but vanished.

Burma the Newest Hot Spot for Child Soldiers

2008-03-25T21:29:00.000-07:00

Till last September, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) office in military-ruled Burma had received few complaints about children being forced to join the army. But that is no longer the case.

’We understand there are some people who operate as brokers. They use force or trickery to take children to recruiting officers,’’ he added. ‘’We have lodged complaints with the government and it has responded quickly, discharging the recruit and disciplining the recruiting officer.’’

A November 2007 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirms the failure of the junta’s special committee to save children from the Tatmadaw. ‘’Children as young as 10 are being targeted by Burmese military recruiters and threatened with arrest or beaten if they refuse to join,’’ revealed the report by the New York-based global rights lobby.

The dismal tone of this report echoed a similar tone of a 2002 report by HRW dealing with the growing number of child soldiers in Burma. That report, ‘My gun was as tall as me’, estimated that ‘’70,000 or more of the Burma army’s estimated 350,000 soldiers may be children.’’

Child Soldiers and Art

2008-03-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

Image used without permission.

Justice and the Arts" DTS (discipleship training school.) Post on "Life as it Comes" blog.
Some artists discussed various issues, including child soldiers, and here is what they came up with.

One More Child Dies

2008-03-14T22:16:00.001-07:00

A Burmese child soldier was shot dead and two were injured in an ambush yesterday morning in Three Pagoda Pass (TPP) township area, said Htat Nay the captain of Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) brigade No. 6.

The child soldier, Myint Kyaw (20) was killed when four KNLA soldiers from battalion No. 16 ambushed troops of the Burmese Infantry Battalion (IB) No. 534 near Myain Thar Yar village (TPP) Township, said captain Htat Nay.

The Human Rights Watch stated in 2007, that the Burmese military junta is forcibly recruiting many children, some as young as 10 years of age, into its armed forces.

"In the ambush four soldiers of the KNLA took on the IB No. 534 with over 60 soldiers," said the captain.

During this year about seven fire fights have occurred between KNLA and the Burmese Army, he said. "The Burmese Army has been launching offensives and we usually ambush them as the regime has much more soldiers," he added.

KNLA is the military wing of the Karen National Union (KNU) one of the stronger ethnic armed groups which has been fighting the Burmese junta for over half a century for independence of Karen state in Burma.

Last month four Burmese soldiers defected to KNU together with their guns and in uniforms to fight the Burmese military.

Thomas Lubanga - Another ICC for March

2008-03-14T22:03:00.000-07:00

The International Criminal Court on Thursday delayed its first trial by three months, setting a date at the end of June for a Congolese warlord to face charges of conscripting and using child soldiers.

The trial of Thomas Lubanga had been set to start March 31, but was held up as prosecutors delayed turning over evidence to defense attorneys to better ensure the security of their witnesses.

Along with Charles Taylor, this will hopefully make a statement to the world. Or at least to all the political and military leaders.

Full Story Here

Kenya Children At Risk

2008-03-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

I don't think it comes as much of a surprise that exposure to violence and witnessing acts of violence is leading children in Kenya to think of revenge. This makes them easy targets for groups needing soldiers. The following article highlights this issue:

Since the eruption of post-election violence in Kenya following the announcement of the December 27 presidential results, Wanjiru has been visiting various camps for internally displaced persons across the country to conduct counselling sessions to children.

Most children in the camps, she says, having witnessed death, destruction of property and fighting, are not only traumatised but also harbour bitter feelings towards the perpetrators of the acts.

The children use the word adui to refer to members of the community or communities believed to have visited terror on their families and friends.

Counsellors and conflict resolution experts now warn that unless the pent-up anger is urgently dealt with, such children may grow up to seek revenge. This, they say, could make them easy targets for recruitment by outlawed militias in the country.

Indeed, says Wanjiru children below 18 years are becoming loyal to militia leaders — such as those of the proscribed Mungiki and Taliban — which are flourishing under the guise of vigilantes

He said that many many countries where children have joined armed conflicts, it all began by them taking part in ethnic fighting. “Reconciliation efforts aimed at ensuring peaceful co-existence among the different communities in Kenya will not yield much if children are allowed to grow up with the bitterness and hatred resulting from the conflict,” said Mr Cuttat.

Full Article Here

Lord of War Captured

2008-03-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, acting together with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, Thai authorities stormed into a downtown hotel in Bangkok and arrested Viktor Bout, the inspiration for the title character in the 2005 thriller Lord of War.

Arms deals, blood diamonds, intelligence agencies, child soldiers -- Bout is alleged to be in the middle of all of it, with his name, his presence or his business interests repeatedly popping up at the wrong place at the wrong time, across borders, continents and decades of war.

Read article here

Interview with U.N. Under-Secretary-General Show Importance of Religious NGOs

2008-03-08T11:10:00.000-08:00

In an interview with IPS correspondent Nergui Manalsuren, U.N. Under-Secretary-General Radhika Coomaraswamy said that religious organisations have played a very important role in the rehabilitation and education of the more than 50,000 children who have been demobilised from military service.

NM: How far has the U.N. succeeded in rehabilitating and re-integrating child soldiers? Are there any specific programmes for this? And does the U.N. have enough funding?

RC: Well, this is a big issue because re-integration programs are things that are under-funded. Basically UNICEF [The U.N. Children’s Fund] and other organisations who deal with these programmes have realised that just demobilising a child, and sending him home, or keeping him in an orphanage if there are no parents is not an answer. Actually, you have to take them home, and you have to develop the community to receive them. This is a more complex process.

In the funding world - there is emergency assistance and development assistance - the two are in different categories. But in the case of child soldiers, demobilisation is an emergency issue, but reintegration must be seen as a development issue.

So often there is money to demobilise but the development agencies do not get involved fast enough for reintegrating child soldiers successfully. On issues like this we should think more holistically and what is best for the child.

NM: Can we say that it is poorly funded?

RC: Yes, it’s poorly funded. The long time re-integration is poorly funded, but actual demobilisation is all right.

NM: The Tokyo based Global Network of Religions for Children will be focusing on children under siege, including child soldiers, at an international conference in Hiroshima in May highlighting the role of education, ethics and religion in the rehabilitation of children. What are your thoughts on this? Would inter-faith dialogue help?

RC: Well, religious organisations play a very important role because whatever said and done in the end UNICEF funds local groups to do the rehabilitation. UNICEF itself doesn’t do the rehabilitation. So, the local groups involved in these programmes - many of them are religious - some of them are very dedicated workers.

So, religious NGOs are very important, but I think that it is also true that the education is important. We are trying to make safety zones so that even in the war zones children can continue to study and play. So, I think that all faiths are against child soldiers.

She also comments on the UN version of the black list:

I don’t think that naming and shaming would work because they don’t accept the U.N. as a shaming mechanism. They come from another worldview. So, I think we have to keep working at the grass-roots level. We have to try to get communities to put pressure on them and to stop them. So at the moment, we have to work through local communities.

Read entire article here

They Fight Like Warriors, But Die Like Children

2008-03-02T08:54:00.000-08:00

Retired Lt.-Gen. Romeo Dallaire addressed a crowd of about 570 youth workers Friday, urging them to continue to fight for the welfare of children.

Dallaire served as commander of the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda between 1993 and 1994.

More than 800,000 people were slaughtered and more than two million were displaced over a 100-day period when the nation was caught up in a vortex of war and genocide.

After leaving military service, Dallaire was appointed to the Senate.

He is also a member of the United Nations secretary general's advisory committee on genocide prevention.

By having various groups joining forces for a common goal such as the welfare of children, he said, there is a greater opportunity for success.

"We don't need to just co-operate and co-ordinate and collaborate, but we also need to integrate."

That sentiment has served Dallaire well in his efforts to eradicate the use of child soldiers.

Full article here.

Human Rights Watch Tells UN to Wake Up

2008-02-22T09:21:00.000-08:00

"The LTTE and the Karuna group continue to use children to fight their battles in clear violation of international law and Security Council resolutions," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch. "The Security Council should punish their brazen violations with concrete action."

Human Rights Watch also called upon the UN Security Council to publicly condemn the Sri Lankan government for failing to investigate cases of child abduction and recruitment in government-controlled territory, and the complicity of its security forces in abductions by the Karuna group.

Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to give both the LTTE and the Karuna group 30 days to release all children in their ranks and end all new recruitment. If they fail to do so, the Security Council should impose arms embargoes, and travel bans and asset freezes on the leadership.

Although some children had been released, LTTE is not holding up their agreement that all the children in their ranks be released by Dec 31, 2007. A small "show" is just not good enough. We're not looking for the appearance of change, but change itself. It's not enough for the LTTE to act like their complying, they must fully surrender all children involved in their war.

"For over a year, the Sri Lankan government has been promising to investigate the well-documented complicity between its own forces and the abduction of children by the Karuna group," said Becker. "Its failure to conduct a credible investigation in a timely way is simply unacceptable."

Full article here

A Helping Hand for Child Soldiers

2008-02-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

Profile on Martha Lucía Ramírez.

In 2002, she was appointed by then President Uribe to serve as Colombia's minister of defense. Ramírez was the second woman in Latin America -- and the first in Colombia -- to ever hold this position. In the wake of decades of civil conflict, she expanded the Defense Department's role to include economic security, infrastructure development, and educational support. Within a few years, her support programs -- safe housing, education, jobs, and counseling -- helped thousands of child soldiers leave guerilla and paramilitary groups and return to their families. Currently a member of the Colombian Senate, her holistic approach to security continues to reduce the nation's violence. One of her current legislative initiatives is to lift restrictions against women being promoted to the rank of general in the military.

Taken from "Women Waging Peace"

Nkunda Denies the Obvious

2008-02-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

The renegade general Laurent Nkunda, who commands a band of rebel Congolese Tutsis in the eastern Congo, denied that he has recruited child soldiers – an accusation made by the United Nations Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MONUC, and various international aid groups working in the North Kivu province. Although this is an obvious no-brainer statement, made by pretty much anyone accused of using children in battle, Nkunda has released many children into the care of Caritas [the Catholic church’s humanitarian agency].
He says, “Some organisations do not want to present anything positive on my side,” Oswald Musoni, director of Caritas in Goma, acknowledged that Nkunda had turned over many child soldiers. “From the 2,226 children we demobilised from 2004 to 2006, 2,003 came from Nkunda’s armed forces, as he was controlling almost the entire region,” said Musoni.

Nkunda told investigators, "I have no children in the army under my control. You can go around if you want, and you will not find any."

Nkunda claimed, however, that he had inherited child soldiers from the Rally for Congolese Democracy, RCD, a former rebel faction reportedly backed by Rwanda and which operated in eastern Congo from 1998 to 2003. Nkunda was a senior officer in the RDC, which was one of the major rebel groups fighting there.

However, the UN reports that last December hundreds of child soldiers were used in the front lines of clashes between Nkunda’s forces and the Congolese army. Also that Nkunda’s Congrès National pour la Défense du Peuple, CNDP, and the FDLR were the two main groups who routinely grabbed children from schools and internal refugee camps. They estimated that 8,500 former child soldiers who have been rescued since 2004 have since been re-recruited.

Full article here

Gbona Testifies in Taylor Trial

2008-02-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Quick update in the Charles Taylor trial. Witness Aruna Gbona testified this week. Gbona was born in 1952 in Talia in the Kailahun District in Sierra Leone. Before the war he was a rice farmer.

Gbona testified that RUF rebels were as young as 8, 9 and 10 years old, children carrying guns. All the commanders (Issa Sesay, Mosquito, Augustine Gbao) had these young soldiers with them.

Sri Lanka to Report

2008-02-18T06:42:00.000-08:00

The Government is planning to present a comprehensive report on its recent findings on the recruitment of child soldiers at the United Nations Security Council meeting on Thursday, in line with its Zero-Tolerance policy on using underaged children in armed conflict.

According to Mahinda Samarasinghe, Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister, the Sri Lankan delegation would apprise the UN on the progress made so far by a committee appointed by him to inquire into abductions and recruitment of children for armed conflict.

The Minister appointed a high level Committee headed by the Secretary to the Ministry of Justice and Law Reform, Suhada Gamlath to look into the matter in August 2007, following a commitment made to the UN Security Council Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.

According to the Minister the Committee, mandated to initiate and monitor the investigations of allegations into abductions and recruitment, was also given authority to monitor and make recommendations, and to assure that the released children have access to adequate facilities for rehabilitation and reintegration.

He stressed that in addition to charges levelled against the LTTE all other allegations of misconduct by other armed groups too were closely monitored.

Recently the UN in a report singled out the LTTE as being among the top six blatant human rights violators in the world. In the same meeting the UN adopted a text which was endorsed by all to end impunity for such violations and abuses.

While strongly condemning the practice the Council had also called for the full implementation of the monitoring and reporting mechanism on children in armed conflict called for in the 2005 resolution.
The Sri Lankan delegation which also includes Attorney General C.R.De Silva and Deputy Solicitor General (AG's Department) Yasantha Kodagoda in addition to Gamlath would make a thorough presentation on the progress to date.

Article here.

What Happens Now?

2008-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Until now, organisations in Uganda have focused on housing former child soldiers in reception centres where they undergo two to three months of psycho-social care and learn how to live in regular society again before being resettled with families in the camps.

"In the Ugandan context, these children are coming out of the bush and after a short stay at the reception centres are being put in the internally displaced camps," said Daisy Muculezi, programme officer in charge of child protection with the UK-based Save the Children in Uganda.

"This has the a lot to do with how they cope; many of them resort to sex work, or brew alcohol to make ends meet - common means of earning a living in the camps - others abuse alcohol."

Muculezi noted that the follow-up of these resettled children had not been as regular as it could have been, and many had returned to the streets within weeks of being placed, unable to cope with life in the camps.

"We are now in the recovery phase in northern Uganda, and the government's peace, development and recovery plan for the region has a social welfare component that we are looking at to fill the gaps in our handling of former abductees."

One of the ways to better serve the children, according to UNICEF's Ismail, is to let the children have a say in choosing their future. "We do not want to force the children into vocations they do not want, so we let them decide whether they wand to be tailors, bakers, carpenters, or would rather continue with formal schooling."

Plan International has school programmes for former child soldiers in Angola, Mozambique and Sierra Leone that incorporate peace-building training and counselling for girls who had children as a result of rape during the conflict, as well as lessons in HIV prevention.

Article first found on PlusNews here.

Former Child Soldiers Now Deal With HIV

2008-02-15T17:08:00.000-08:00

The best way to get a child to kill for a warlord is to have them shot so full of drugs that they have no resistance and don't care anymore if it's their own mother they aiming at. With the rehabilitation of former child soldiers, we see that a growing number now have to battle with HIV, due to unsafe needle practices. As if they didn't have enough to deal with.

See article here.