Children conscripted by poverty in Chad

From IRIN, a story about child soldiers in the country of Chad. A new report from Amnesty International finds that a some of the children are abducted away from their families in order to fight.

“My father is old. At home we did not have enough for everyone, so I wanted to better our situation and join the army to help my family and my mother... After one year with the armed group FSR [Front for the Salvation of the Republic], I became commander of a group of 50 fighters. Maybe I was made the commander because I am literate; I could write and read. Then I had to join the government forces when our commander... decided to join the Chadian government.”

Mahamane, 13, was among dozens of minors interviewed by Amnesty International for a new report, who had joined the Chadian army and armed opposition groups in the east. The report found that 80 percent of the estimated 7,000-10,000 child soldiers recruited in Chad are associated with armed groups, while the remaining 20 percent are involved with the country’s armed forces. These UN estimates also indicate that they may have been used as combatants.

The legal minimum age for voluntary recruitment is 18, with compulsory conscription at 20.

“Some have been abducted and forcibly recruited. Others have joined up to avenge the death of family members or the pillage of cattle, or simply to escape poverty and the lack of education or job opportunities,” states the report. According to Amnesty, children are paid a one-off 10,000-250,000 CFA francs (US$20-$500) by recruiters. In refugee and displaced people’s camps, unemployed teenagers just out of primary school are most at risk, while in villages, children from poor backgrounds or whose family members are in the army or armed groups are likely to be recruited. In some cases, recruiters send children already in their ranks with cigarettes, money or nice clothes to camps to lure other children into joining.

The main reasons for children to join up are poverty and a lack of educational opportunities. The report identifies eastern Chad as one of the most impoverished regions of the country, “largely because of its harsh environment, decades of neglect by the authorities and now widespread insecurity”. Chadian law requires that both primary and secondary education be free of charge for all children (and mandatory to age 14), but the scarcity of schools and teachers in the region leaves most children without many options.

Recruitment is also a way for children to escape attacks on their villages by armed militia groups. Army commanders have been reportedly calling on the Dadjo community living in Chad’s Dar Sila region to send their children to the army as a way of protecting the community, states Amnesty.

Christian Mukosa, a researcher for Amnesty International’s Africa Programme, told IRIN that recruitment of children was not something new, but little had changed in recent years. “In 2007, UNICEF [UN Children’s Fund] evaluated that between 7,000 and 10,000 children were associated with armed groups, but by 2010, less than 900 were released from these forces and groups. This suggests that thousands of children remain in the hands of their recruiters. It was reported by the UN that 13 percent of children released from the armed forces and groups in 2007 and 2008 came from Chad’s National Army [ANT].”

A highly volatile political situation in the east of the country near the Sudanese border and the recent withdrawal of UN forces under the Chadian government’s directive in 2010 may have exacerbated the problem.

In October 2007, the Chadian government adopted a national programme for the release, transitional support and reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups, but efforts to implement the plan have faced difficulties. The country is also party to international agreements, including the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that countries must take steps to ensure than children under the age of 15 do not take part in hostilities.

According to Amnesty, the main obstacles to implementing these commitments are “a lack of will by political and military officials to engage in the process”. There have been no prosecutions for child recruitment. Instead, says the report, “many of those suspected of recruiting children have been offered senior government posts, perpetuating impunity at the highest levels of government”. In 2006, the government signed a peace accord with the rebel group FUC (United Front for Democratic Change), extending an amnesty to all combatants and appointing some of its members to government.

Dingemadji Carlos, director of studies, legislation and litigation within the Ministry for Human Rights and the Promotion of Liberties, told IRIN that “the amnesty accorded to ex-rebels is the price we must pay for reconciliation and it is necessary for bringing about peace and stability”. He said the country became a theatre of civil war and external aggressions right after independence, and conflict continued to the present day.

Since 2003, eastern Chad has been involved with Sudan’s conflict in Darfur and militia groups from Sudan linked to rebel forces in the east have orchestrated attacks on civilian populations within Chad’s borders. A five-year proxy war between Chad and Sudan ended in January 2010 with a rapprochement, but the Chadian government continued to clash with rebel forces in the east.

Carlos remains adamant that continuing insecurity in the east will not hamper government efforts to abide by its commitments. “We must wait from now until June for the next legislation to be enacted in order for the implementation of the code of protection for children to start again. The government has already submitted the bill to the Supreme Court for a judicial review.” He added that the government was elaborating a plan of action with the UN to help re-integrate children that have been demobilized from the ranks of armed groups and provide increased access to education.

“The government has launched an ambitious training programme for teachers of basic education as part of its policy on education in Chad. Twenty percent of the budget has been set aside for education,” he said.

So far, demobilized children remain vulnerable to re-recruitment even after they return home. While long-term efforts such as increasing stability in the east and implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child are imperative, Amnesty’s Mukosa suggests that resources be allocated to short-term measures. “There are things that the government can do in a short time such as building schools, appointing teachers, and creating youth and training centres,” he said.

Video: Afghan kids suffer abuses

From Al Jazeera, a video on the treatment of Afghan children who join the army or the Taliban.

Fears over child recruitment, abuse by pro-government militias in Afghanistan

From IRIN, a story on the recruitment of child soldiers in Afghanistan.

Pro-government militias in parts of Afghanistan are believed to be recruiting underage boys and sometimes sexually abusing them in an environment of criminal impunity, local people and human rights organizations say.

In a bid to counter the intensifying insurgency, the Afghan government and US/NATO forces have been setting up controversial community-based militias, such as the Afghan Local Police, in insecure provinces. To date, thousands of men have been recruited to such bodies in Kunduz, Baghlan and Kandahar provinces, says the Interior Ministry.

“The militias and commanders are hiring young, underage boys in their ranks for different illicit purposes,” said Haji Abdul Rahim, a tribal elder in the southern province of Kandahar.

Another elderly man, Khan Mohammad, accused pro-government militias of kidnapping teenage boys primarily for sexual exploitation.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) also said it had received reports of child recruitment by pro-government militias in some provinces.

“We’re seriously concerned about this,” said Hussein Nasrat, a child rights officer at AIHRC, adding that his organization was investigating the issue.

“The use and abuse of children by local armed groups is very worrying because they [pro-government militias] fall beyond the formal, legal and disciplinary structures within which the police and army operate,” he said.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said it had not received “confirmed information” on the issue, but that it was concerned about the “association of children with such forces” due to their community-based status.

NGOs have demanded that the government and US/NATO forces stop using local militias and instead devote greater resources to developing a more professional and accountable police and army.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, meanwhile, has said the proliferation of armed actors impedes and threatens humanitarian work in Afghanistan.

Child soldiers

Children are recruited and used for military purposes by the Afghan national police, as well as the following anti-government groups: Haqqani network, Hezb-i-Islamic, Taliban, Tora Bora Front and the Jamat Sunat al-Dawa Salafia, the UN Secretary-General said in a report in April 2010.

Internally displaced and isolated children in conflict-affected areas are particularly at risk of recruitment by non-state armed groups, Radhika Coomaraswamy, a special representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, said in a February 2010 country mission report.

“The recruitment and use of children by both [anti-government] armed groups and national security forces was documented throughout the country by the UN Country Task Force on children in armed conflict between 2008 and 2010,” UNICEF’s country office told IRIN.

In addition to recruiting children as foot soldiers, the Taliban and other insurgent groups are accused of using children as suicide bombers, and forcing them to plant improvised explosives.

“Armed opposition groups continue to perpetrate grave violations against children in the context of the armed conflict,” said UNICEF, adding that the fragmentation of armed opposition groups was jeopardizing dialogue with them on the issue of child soldiers.

Poverty and unemployment are believed to be pushing children into joining armed groups. Extremely low levels of birth registration and weak identity documents are also contributing to the problem, UNICEF said.

Sexual abuse

War-related sexual violence is another issue which needs tackling, human rights organizations say.

Children, particularly boys, are sexually abused by different armed groups and `baccha baazi’ (meaning “boy play”, a paedophiliac practice) has been reported among armed forces across the country.

Despite assurances by the government that child sexual abuse will be tackled and perpetrators punished, little has been done thus far, according to AIHRC.

“This is most probably due to the social stigma attached to the issue as well as the inability of the government to fully control armed group leaders who may be perpetrating such acts,” Coomaraswamy said in her report.

As a result, cases of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children have rarely been tackled due to impunity and the weak rule of law, AIHRC said.

Children are also killed, wounded, detained, displaced and denied access to essential health and education services by the warring parties, human rights organizations say.

In the first half of 2010, 176 children were killed and 389 wounded in the conflict - up 55 percent on the same period in 2009, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported.

Backed by the UN and other international actors, the Afghan government says it is committed to tackling all the problems which adversely affect children in the context of war. However, human rights bodies such as AIHRC accuse the government of promising much but delivering little.

Taking up fighting in a war to escape poverty

For some desperate for a way out, going to war could seem like a good option instead of suffering from poverty. Similar to in the states where a homeless person will commit a crime in order to get into jail, for a warm bed and three meals a day.

In Columbia, children a preyed upon to enter a rebel fighting force. The child soldiers join to escape poverty, parental abuse or for revenge.

In this Bloomberg story, we read of a former child soldier named Juan, who surrendered to the Colombian army after fearing for his life. Writer Helen Murphy also gathers statistics from Human Rights Watch for her story.

“I couldn’t take the fear and hunger any more,” recalls Juan, a physically and emotionally scarred former child soldier who turned himself in to Colombia’s military in 2008 after escaping from two years with the drug-funded rebels. “The army bombed us every night and I was afraid.”

As the world seeks to prevent the use of minors in armed conflict, thousands -- some as young as 11 -- bear arms in Colombia’s illegal forces, according to New York-based Human Rights Watch. The global financial crisis may increase the pool of willing recruits: With more rural Colombians facing poverty, it may be easier for the rebels to replace members killed or captured in President Alvaro Uribe’s attacks against them.

Young prospects “come from poor and brutal backgrounds, where even armed combat seems a better option, and the FARC is happy to take them in,” says Philippe Houdard, whose Developing Minds Foundation in Miami Beach, Florida, helps fund a home in Colombia for former child combatants, some of whom were forced into service.

‘Appalling’ Abuses

While the scope of the problem worldwide is impossible to gauge, Lucia Withers, acting director of the London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, says youngsters are always involved in wars in some way. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Feb. 12 said the use of child soldiers is “one of the most appalling human-rights abuses in the world today.”

Once the killing starts, “they are thrown into extreme stress,” says Maggie Mauer, a Coral Gables, Florida, psychologist who has studied Colombia’s former young fighters. “Some told me they lost control of their bowels in combat. But they are not allowed to be afraid; they would be ridiculed by those they depend on for survival.”

Juan, who bears a deep gouge down his left cheek, joined the FARC, Colombia’s largest illegal armed group, when he was 14. Like most young recruits, he came voluntarily with the promise of adventure and a better life away from destitution. He also wanted revenge on the army for killing his older brother, another child soldier.

Child soldiers of Congo

In the Congo's decade long war, many children have been stolen from their homes and forced to fight. Over five million people have died in the war in eastern Congo.

OXFAM's press service has a story about some of the boys who are being rehabilitated. A Congolese NGO and UNICEF operate a transition center for the boys. The center helps to heal them from what they saw or did, and to get them back into real life.

The story from OXFAM begins with a story of how Fidel got caught by soldiers then later escaped.

Fidel sits in front of me in an orange and brown striped T-shirt. It has a roller-skating motif and is emblazoned with the word 'freestyle'. He's shy. His glowing eyes often look down and he occasionally bites his lip. He looks younger than his 14 years -about eight years old. It's difficult to match his face with the horrible story he tells me. Fidel is a former child soldier, but looks like any other kid.

Fidel had an 18 year-old brother who deserted the Mai-Mai, one of the eastern Congo's multitude of armed factions. Men from the group came looking for his brother at family home, but he wasn't there. Fidel was. They decided to take him instead.

"My mother begged and cried," he says, "The rebels said they'd spare me if my mum paid them $100. But we were poor and didn't have the money."

As he was snatched away, his mother screamed. The soldiers said that they would kill her if she didn't shut up.

He finds it difficult to play still, he says. Even though he is now in a safe place, he still has the memories.

"I used to carry ammunition for the soldiers as they fought on the frontline. One day I saw 60 bodies dead in the battlefield. I knew then I needed to escape or I'd end up dead myself."

After six months of enduring beatings with sticks, Fidel managed to escape one night when the soldiers were sleeping. He ran for two miles in darkness of the night until he reached the base of MONUC, the UN peacekeeping mission for Congo.

The stories of children like Fidel and Michel painfully underscore why we need to find an end to horrific violence that has plagued the eastern Congo for too long. Child protection agencies have reported that Mai Mai militia in the town of Rutshuru recruited 37 children into military service the week before last. An estimated 150 children have been forcibly recruited since heavy fighting resumed in August.