CRINmail 187:
Special edition to mark the 25th anniversary of the CRC
In this issue:
This week marks the 25th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). To mark that event, this special issue of the Children and Armed Conflict CRINmail draws attention to conflicts and issues affecting children in conflict that have slipped out of our consciousness or never made it there in the first place.
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In times of armed conflict, children’s rights are violated in horrific ways: they are killed and maimed, abducted, recruited to fight, and experience sexual violence and attacks on their daily lives.
According to the 1996 UN report on the ‘Impact of Armed Conflict on Children’, prepared by Graça Machel, “in recent decades, the proportion of war victims who are civilians has leaped dramatically from five per cent to over 90 per cent.“
Hundreds of children are dying, with many more injured and displaced, while those responsible escape with impunity. Perpetrators of violations of children’s rights in times of armed conflict must be prosecuted to ensure victims obtain justice and reparation.
Information is a powerful - and necessary - tool for conveying the horrors of warfare, understanding the impact of conflict on different population groups, gathering evidence on possible rights violations and eventually securing accountability.
Yet, many ongoing conflicts and issues around the impact of war on children fall off the news radar. While most major media outlets’ mission is to provide unbiased information to share global news with the public, the selected headlines don’t always reflect the complete reality of children in conflict. As Graça Machel notes in her report, “whether a story is reported or not may depend less on its intrinsic importance than on subjective perceptions of the public’s appetite for information and at the expense of informing them.”
The conflict in Darfur, Sudan, began in 2003, driven by a range of factors, including growing conflict over the area’s resources and perceptions that the west of the country was being marginalised.
The conflict has intensified over the last year-and-a-half. In May 2014, UNICEF warned that an entire generation may be lost as a result of more than ten years of violence in the region. That same month the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned that since January 2014, a new wave of insecurity and violence across Darfur has generated enormous additional humanitarian needs.
Even more worrying are the alleged cover-ups and manipulation of human rights reporting by the African Union/UN peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID). These cover-ups include indiscriminate aerial bombing that killed civilians, and attacks on peacekeepers, such as the attack at Muhajeriya in South Darfur in April 2013 that killed a peacekeeper and injured two others.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
The situation in the Central African Republic (CAR) has recently been referred to as ‘the forgotten crisis’.
The latest eruption of violence began on 10 December 2012, when the Seleka (‘Alliance’) rebel coalition launched a series of attacks, culminating in March 2013 when President François Bozizé was forced to flee.
The country descended into ethnic and sectarian violence, with thousands of people fleeing their homes and the UN warning of a high risk of genocide.
Despite a refugee crisis to rival Syria’s, “the international community hasn’t done nearly enough to alleviate suffering in CAR,” writes Nathalie Baptiste for a joint report by The Nation and Foreign Policy in Focus. “In 2013, CAR was the fifth most underfunded UN appeal and appeared in [the European Commission's Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Department (ECHO)] ‘Forgotten Crisis Assessment’ in both 2012 and 2013.”
The deadly cycle of sectarian violence has been escalating in central and eastern parts of the country in recent months despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, on July 23.
Since the beginning of October 2014, the fighting has intensified in the capital Bangui. On October 10th, armed members of the Seleka stormed a church where civilians had sought shelter, killing nine people including four children.
Two years of conflict have displaced more than 830,000 people, including some 430,000 who fled to neighbouring countries.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
The brutality continues in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Around 120 people have been killed in various parts of Beni since the beginning of October in a series of attacks attributed to members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel Ugandan armed group.
The night of 15 October, 30 people were hacked to death mostly with machetes. In another massacre, at least 22 people were killed with machetes, axes and hoes, eight of them were children.
Since 1995 ADF has been active in the mountainous terrain around Beni and frequently engages in massacres, looting and forcible conscription of local people.
While having the potential to be one of the richest countries in Africa, the DRC remains at the bottom of the list of countries in the Human Development Index due in part to weak state structures, corruption and governance problems, and to decades of violence that continue to affect the east. Foreign and local armed groups in that area are fighting for power, natural resources, or because of ethnic differences.
Read a statement by Child Soldiers International and Jesuit Refugee Service urging the Congolese government to implement the 2012 recommendations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child on Optional Protocol to the CRC on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
In Mali, an armed rebellion launched on 17 January 2012 expelled the army from the north of the country while a military coup overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré on 22 March. These two episodes ushered Mali into an unprecedented crisis.
According to a UN report published in January 2013, the crisis led to serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, rape, torture, amputations and forced disappearances at the hands of both rebels and government forces. The report emphasises that women and girls in particular have suffered degrading treatment by hard-line Islamist groups based on "an extreme interpretation of Sharia law”. Girls as young as 12 or 13 are said to have been forcibly married to radical Islamists and sexually abused by them. Nearly half a million people have been displaced. A war crimes probe is under way at the International Criminal Court for acts committed in Mali since January 2012.
Reports also suggest that children have been abducted into the ranks of militants; they have been involved in the conflict by fighting, patrolling and scouting combat zones as well as staffing checkpoints.
But today, even though the security situation has been deteriorating in northern Mali, news of the conflict is scarce.
While control of the north by the Malian government was largely restored in 2013 following a French-led military intervention, the groups negotiating with the government and others linked to Al-Qaeda are occupying territory and committing abuses against civilians and peacekeepers. Read more details on the ongoing peace talks.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
Sri Lanka was torn apart by a 26-year-long armed conflict that ended in May 2009, primarily between the Sri Lankan Armed Forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Numerous violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law were reported by both parties.
More recently the state has failed to investigate incidents of anti-Muslim violence, mainly carried out by extremist Buddhist groups. A Human Rights Watch press release relates the events that occurred in June 15, 2014, after a rally led by the ultra-nationalist Buddhist Bodhu Bala Sena (BBS) organisation, leaving at least four Muslims dead, 80 injured, and numerous homes and businesses destroyed in the town of Aluthgama and surrounding areas.
In 2013, after a week-long visit, Navi Pillay, then UN Commissioner for Human Rights, sharply criticised the government for its human rights record and said that Sri Lanka was “showing signs of heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction”.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
The human impact of the conflict between the government and guerrilla groups has been devastating, with at least 50,000 lives lost to date, and one of the world’s largest populations of internally displaced people – many of whom have disappeared.
Girls and boys are subjected to forced recruitment, rape and sexual violence, killing and maiming, and have been seriously affected by attacks on schools and the denial of humanitarian assistance.
Colombia also has one of the highest numbers of victims of antipersonnel mines and explosives remnants of war in the world, according to the 2011 landmine monitor. Contributing to this situation is the frequent use by guerrilla movements such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN) of antipersonnel landmines and other indiscriminate weapons. Read a report by UNICEF on the impact of landmines on children.
Read CRIN’s summary of the conflict and its impact on children.
In April 2014, the abduction of 200 school girls by Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown Islamist insurgent movement, sparked international outrage.
But the armed group has been active in Nigeria since 2009 in a violent campaign against the government in a bid to impose Islamic law, mostly in the northeast of the country.
In 2013, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG) received reports of the recruitment and use of children as young as 12 by Boko Haram. Children are allegedly used for intelligence purposes, tracking movements of the security forces, transporting guns and taking part in attacks, including the burning of schools and churches.
According to Human Rights Watch, 7,000 civilians died from 2009 through July 2014 during the Boko Haram related unrest and violence in northeast Nigeria. At least 500 women and girls from northern Nigeria were abducted during the same period, with numerous human rights abuses perpetrated against them in captivity.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor opened a preliminary examination of the situation in Nigeria in November 2010 and is yet to take a decision on whether or not to open an investigation. The prosecutor’s current analysis is focused on assessing whether Nigerian authorities are conducting adequate domestic proceedings in relation to the crimes allegedly committed by Boko Haram. Residents of villages and towns ravaged by Boko Haram attacks say that the government has failed both to prevent attacks where women and girls were abducted, and to protect those in imminent danger.
Unaccompanied children are at particular risk of torture and ill-treatment. They are some of the most vulnerable people in the world. But instead of being protected, they are subject to detention and brutality, unable to access education, health care, or to seek asylum, and left without adequate legal protection in domestic legal systems.
All too often the thousands of unaccompanied children arriving from conflict areas without parents or caregivers find themselves trapped in their status as migrants, with governments giving little consideration to their vulnerabilities and needs as children. Many face exploitation, prolonged detention, intimidation and abusive police behaviour, registration and treatment as adults after unreliable age assessments, bureaucratic obstacles to accessing education, and abuse when detained or housed in institutions. Read a study by Human Rights Watch, "Caught in a Net: Unaccompanied Migrant Children in Europe".
While the recruitment of children and efforts to demobilise them are well reported, information around the availability and successes of demobilisation and reintegration programmes is almost non-existent.
Hundreds of thousands of children are used as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. Many are abducted and beaten into submission, others join military groups to escape poverty, to defend their communities, out of a feeling of revenge or for other reasons.
When children are demilitarised, they are given a chance to go back to their lives, their families and communities. But in reality, it’s easier said than done. Children often struggle to reintegrate and are sometimes rejected by their own communities.
According to Child Soldiers International, efforts to release child soldiers and facilitate their recovery and reintegration often fall short of their needs. In many situations where children are known to be actively involved in armed conflict there are no formal programmes to bring about their release and support their reintegration. Where such programmes exist, child soldiers cannot always access them or otherwise receive insufficient assistance for the complex process of reintegration. As a result, they become more vulnerable to trafficking and re-recruitment.
The Statute of Rome that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) provides that the ICC shall have no jurisdiction over a child who was under the age of 18 at the time of the commission of an alleged offence.
The Statutes of the Ad hoc tribunals (what are these?) of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia did not establish a minimum age of criminal responsibility, but neither of these tribunals indicted anyone under the age of 18. However, early in his tenure, the first Chief Prosecutor of the SCSL stated that as a matter of policy he did not intend to indict persons for crimes committed when they were children, but to indict those most responsible, meaning their adult recruiters and commanders.
The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict explains that “the distinction between “voluntary” enlistment and forced recruitment is without meaning because even if children join on a “voluntary” basis, it is a desperate attempt to survive. Ultimately it is the decision of adult commanders to recruit children and they have to be held accountable for their acts.”
The Paris Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated With Armed Forces or Armed Groups (Paris Principles) also state: “To ensure that children under 18 years of age who are or who have been unlawfully recruited or used by armed forces or groups and are accused of crimes against international law are considered primarily as victims of violations against international law and not only as alleged perpetrators. They should be treated in accordance with international standards for juvenile justice, such as in a framework of restorative justice and social rehabilitation.”
New technology has brought new means of recruiting children. The Islamic State (IS) has been recruiting children through social media. Boys and girls are leaving their homes and travelling to join Islamic fighters in Syria and Iraq. Girls as young as 14 or 15 are travelling to marry jihadis, bear their children and join communities of fighters, with a small number taking up arms. Some of these children regret their decision but are unable to go back home where they are categorised as terrorists and risk becoming stateless.
A report by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) of September 1024 reported that ISIL and some associated armed groups are actively recruiting children as young as 13 as fighters.
“For children it was devastating. Their schools and health clinics had been destroyed, and the years of education they had lost could not be recovered. They lived their childhood under the burden of economic deprivations caused by the war. Most importantly, they lived through the injuries and deaths of their parents, families and friends and the destruction of their communities.” Graça Machel, foreword, Children and Transitional Justice, UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre.
According to the International Centre for Transitional justice (ICTJ), transitional justice refers to the set of judicial and non-judicial measures that have been implemented by different countries in order to redress the legacies of massive human rights abuses. These measures include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programmes, and various kinds of institutional reforms.
Children and youth are prone to being left out of transitional justice processes because of their age and social status and because they may not always be perceived as equal rights holders in these processes.
Every human rights violation must have a remedy. The importance of access to justice applies equally to children and adults. Yet children’s rights in this area, namely their ability to enforce their rights and challenge violations, are largely neglected or ignored.
Read the study by UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre on Children and Transitional Justice and research by ICTJ on “Engaging Children and Youth in Transitional Justice Processes”.
The line between armed conflict and armed violence is becoming increasingly blurred. The Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development defines armed violence as ‘the intentional use of illegitimate force (actual or threatened) with arms or explosives, against a person, group, community, or state that undermines people-centred security and/or sustainable development’.
Non-conflict violence is often distinguished from violence that arises from armed conflict based on the organisation of the attacks. Homicide is usually committed by individuals or small groups, whereas the killing in armed conflict is committed by relatively cohesive groups of up to several hundred members. But there is often little difference in intensity between large-scale criminal violence and low-level armed conflict, and the line between the two is frequently blurred.
According to the Small Arms Survey, armed violence kills around 526,000 people every year, more than three-quarters of whom die in non-conflict settings. Countries such as El Salvador, Jamaica, and South Africa suffer from extremely high recorded levels of homicide, with more deaths each year than in many contemporary wars.
Children are disproportionately affected: they are killed or injured, discouraged from going to school, displaced or even forced into joining gangs and the sense of insecurity that pervades their communities, can leave permanent scars. The war on drugs, for example, has claimed the lives of many civilians. The drug war in Mexico killed more than 100,000 people in the past nine years, many of them young people, including at the hands of law enforcement officials.
The issue of armed violence in general receives little attention. The Arms Trade Treaty was signed last year, establishing common standards for the international trade of conventional weapons and seeks to reduce the illicit arms trade. The events around the signature of the treaty brought some attention to the human suffering caused by illegal and irresponsible arms transfers but the topic quickly faded away from the news.
According the Paulo Pinheiro, “the growing engagement of children and adolescents in organised armed violence is unfortunately becoming more common in some regions of the world. This engagement not only threatens the communities that may be exposed to the violence perpetrated by these groups, but frequently harms and even kills the children and adolescents who are directly involved. The World Report on Violence and Health, 2002, clearly showed that over the last ten years, those aged between 15 and 24 years are the most frequent victims of homicides around the world.” Read his foreword in "Neither War nor Peace", a study on children and youth in organised armed violence.
When States declare a state of emergency, they usually give extended powers to the military, including the trial of civilians in military courts. Certain authoritarian regimes have declared a prolonged state of emergency lasting decades and allowing derogations of the application of certain human rights rules.
In some countries, even where a state of emergency is not in force, military courts have jurisdiction to try civilians charged with committing offences on military property or with crimes against state security.
Principle 5 of the UN Draft Principles Governing the Administration of Justice through Military Tribunals sets out the principle that military courts should have no jurisdiction to try civilians.
Principle No. 7, on the Jurisdiction of military tribunals to try minors under the age of 18 requires that “Strict respect for the guarantees provided in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (Beijing Rules) should govern the prosecution and punishment of minors, who fall within the category of vulnerable persons. In no case, therefore, should minors be placed under the jurisdiction of military courts.”
Information about the situation of Palestinian and Egyptian children tried in military courts is available in a report written by a delegation of British lawyers on the treatment of Palestinian children under Israeli military law, UNICEF’s report on Children in Israeli Military Detention and an article on children tried in Egypt’s military courts in 2012.
The US has been launching drone strikes since 2002 targeting individuals who engage in behaviour which the US deems to be suspicious. The drone strikes have killed between 168 and 202 children in Pakistan, between 25-27 in Yemen, and two in Somalia.
The number of strikes increased significantly in the last few months.
A barrage of drone strikes in October doubled the total number of strikes in Pakistan this year, taking the total number of strikes under the Obama administration past 350 in Pakistan.
The rise in the use of drone technology represents a real challenge to the framework of established international law. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights, Ben Emmerson: “the reality here is that the world is facing a new technological development which is not easily accommodated within the existing legal frameworks, and none of the analyses that have been floated are entirely satisfactory or comprehensive.”
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Closing
CRIN has been collecting information around children and armed conflict for over 10 years, highlighting violations of children’s rights and providing background information on conflict situations.
Our monitoring efforts have allowed us to spot gaps in reporting and campaigning around humanitarian crises. We are rethinking our approach to children and armed conflict and are developing a new and more ambitious plan that goes beyond monitoring the impact of conflict on children to analysing neglected aspects of conflicts. With that we aim to initiate debate and encourage others to use our analysis to take action.
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