Saturday, November 27, 2004
child sex,child labour and now, child soldiering
The first two has been world's concern for quite some time. The first
situation is a clear case of socio sexual exploitation of the weak by
the strong, which should be stopped at any cost. The second situation,
where children are forced to become bread winners , is a social
reality in most parts of the world, mainly where majority people
live. These are instances where you can not decide whether it is a
social problem or a social need. It may at best be called a necessary
evil as you can find the child becoming the bread winner for the
family or at least where he is not contributing to the mouths to be
fed. They are no more children, but precocious adults . Most experts
agree that child labor does not constitute children working a few
hours a day to earn extra spending money or to begin to learn a trade
. Child soldiering is something more distressing. The Youth Advocate
Program International, a non-profit organization that promotes the
rights and well-being of youth on a global basis, says "the term child
labour is generally associated with dangerous and/or exploitative
labor practices applied to children. Child labor indicates a violation
of a child's basic human rights, including the right to an education,
freedom from exploitation and abuse, and the right to be protected for
performing any work that is likely to be harmful, to physical, mental,
spiritual, moral, or social development." The use of child soldiers
fits these criteria.
I invite your attention to the article by Meera Selva in "The
independent" dated 18 Nov. 2004. The write up follows release of a
report of ' The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, released
last week . The writer quotes Geoffrey Oyal, part of the coalition "
Children are forced to go through orchestrated events that turn them
from victims to perpetrators, and make them feel they have no option
but to join militias." You can get detailed information from the
website www.child-soldiers.org, where information is available by
region and country.
It is inferred that more than 100, 000 children have been abducted,
tortured and sexually abused before being recruited to fight in
Africa's long running civil wars in the past 3 years. Congo, Uganda,
Burundi, Rwanda and Sudan are some of the countries in fore front of
this practice. Let us not forget that Liberation Tigers of Tamil elam
( LTTE ) of Srilanka has successfully tested this practice decades ago
itself .The Democratic Republic of Congo has more than 30,000 child
soldiers fighting in militias and acting as body guards for
government army commanders. A notorious group called ' Lord's
Resistance Army ( LRA ) fighting a guerrilla war against Ugandan
Government for last 18 years has in recent times abducted children as
young as 13 and that too after a cruel selection process of killing
the weakest . Militias in Burundi are notorious for kidnapping girls ,
using them for gang raping by soldiers and as rewards for bravery.Even
though Rwandan government will deny, child soldiers as young as 14 are
recruited to serve in local defence forces. Sudan Peoples Liberation
Army( SPLA), a rebel group fighting Sudanese government for last 21
years has found "child power" the only option, since they run out of
manpower in long running civil wars. It is said that in Sudan there
are no street kids , though the country is poor!
Another website of Center for Defence Information ( www.cdi.org)
tells me that today there are approximately 300,000 children currently
serving as combatants in over 30 countries around the world and over
50 countries actively recruit children into the military forces.
Demobilisation programmes for children run by some Governments have
failed to achieve any aim, as the teenager soldiers have found it hard
to fit back into normal society. In fact ex- child soldiers who use
the killing machines as toys , remain social land mines and end up
joining some other militias.While Palestinians have been accused of
using children as suicide bombers , US has not been spared by the
Coalition for detaining 16 year olds as 'enemy combatants' in
Guantanamo Bay , where democratic America's rules will not apply !
In 2002, UN had introduced a optional protocol to end recruitment of
children as soldiers , to which some 85 countries have pledged to
abide by fully by ratifying it . A total of 130 countries are
signatories , but many in Africa, violate the agreement with no fear
of prosecution or sanctions. ( Oh, the latter is for political uses ,
this is a social problem ! ).
Tony Tate, of the children's right director at "Human Rights Watch"
has noted that influx of light ammunition into Africa has boosted
child recruitment, as small guns are perfect for small hands. Who are
the manufacturers of these light ammunitions ? The reports do not
elaborate. Do they think they are manufacturing practical versions of
video games ? Oh, you are again not allowed to speak against interests
of free market economy ! Don't worry, at the present rate by the end
of this decade , US might in all probability will have more war
fronts , at least against Tehran and Pyongyang in the near future. If
the industry is fortunate , at some stage in the middle of the
century, the emerging super power China also may require to be dealt
with , in which case like smaller and lighter mobile phones, laptops
and i Pods , you can expect real Ultra Light Machine Guns ( ULMG), as
US just has no manpower to fight the most populous nation in the
world. Just like Horse power and Man power, child power will find its
way to dictionaries!
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Tuesday, August 31, 2004
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Thursday, September 16, 2004
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Thursday, October 07, 2004
Friday, October 15, 2004
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
Sunday, October 31, 2004
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Saturday, November 27, 2004
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