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In this issue:
The World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) will be held later this month, marking the culmination of a nearly three-year consultation process aimed at improving aid delivery to those affected by crises. Some have described the summit as inspirational but for others it is “naïve”, with much "waffle" and “gaping holes” – including a failure to tackle the question of UN reform and protect the independence of humanitarian action in politicised environments. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) decided last week to pull out of the summit after it felt the WHS may let those most responsible for spiralling humanitarian need – governments – off the hook. In MSF’s opinion, the summit has lost its way and become “a fig-leaf of good intentions”.
A UN report published ahead of the event, One Humanity: Shared Responsibility, paints a compelling picture of the state of humanitarian crises, with record numbers of displaced people, major civil wars, and a rising number of extreme weather events associated with climate change - all of which affect children disproportionately.
Kenya plans to close all its refugee camps within a year, including the world's largest, Dadaab, on the Kenya-Somalia border, in a move that would displace well over 600,000 people. The government said it was shutting down the camps due to “very heavy” economic, security and environmental concerns, citing the influence of terror group Al-Shabaab as among the risks of keeping the camps open. Aid and human rights groups have decried the plan as dangerous, illegal and impractical.
A group of human rights organisations operating in the camp, including Oxfam, Save the Children and the International Rescue Committee, have called on the Kenyan government to reconsider the move. “Shutting down the refugee camps will mean increased protection risks for the thousands of refugees and asylum seekers – [the] majority of [whom] are women, children and unaccompanied minors,” they said in a joint statement. The UN Refugee Agency also called on Kenya to rethink its decision.
Air strikes left dozens of civilians dead and injured last week in the northern Syrian Governorate of Idleb. “All parties to this appalling conflict should understand that they will one day be held accountable for violationsof international humanitarian and human rights law,” said Stephen O'Brien, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. Initial reports indicate that at least 30 people were killed, and over 80 injured, among them many women and children, while dozens of tents were destroyed or badly damaged. “Modern military technology means that there is little room for error,” he said, noting that if this “obscene” attack is found to be a deliberate targeting of a civilian structure, it could amount to a war crime.
The attack came days after government forces destroyed a hospitalbacked by the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières, killing the last paediatrician left in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, and a rebel attack on a maternity hospital in the government-controlled west of the city.
The Sudanese government’s unlawful attacks on civilians and blocking of essential aid should be investigated as war crimes, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said. A new report by HRW documents more than 100 civilian casualties in the Nuba Mountains area of Southern Kordofan in Sudan throughout 2014 and 2015, from aerial bombardment or after the initial attack by unexploded ordnance and other explosive remnants of war. More than 25 children were killed and 29 injured, some seriously. In one incident five children burned to death after a bomb set their house on fire, including one girl who sustained burns all over her body and died weeks later in excruciating pain.
Fighting between Sudanese government forces and the armed opposition, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North (SPLA-N), began in June 2011 following disputed elections in Southern Kordofan, and quickly spread toBlue Nile state. In both states, the conflict has been marked by Sudan’s use of explosive weapons in air attacks on towns and villages, and dire conditions aggravated by the government’s aid blockade.
A former senior director at Aegis, a British private security company, says that the company employed mercenaries from Sierra Leone to work in Iraq because they were cheaper than Europeans; some of them may have been former child soldiers. Contract documents say that the soldiers from Sierra Leone were paid $16 (£11) a day. A documentary, The Child Soldier’s New Job, alleges that the estimated 2,500 Sierra Leonean personnel who were recruited by Aegis and other private security companies to work in Iraq included former child soldiers. “When war gets outsourced, then the companies [try] to find the cheapest soldiers globally. Turns out that that is former child soldiers from Sierra Leone. I think it is important that we [...] are aware of the consequences of the privatisation of war,” said filmmaker Mads Ellesøe.
A new report has found that the Somali Intelligence Agency (SIA) has been using former child soldiers as spies, according to interviews with children as well as Somali and UN officials. The children, who were demilitarised from al-Shabab’s ranks, were forced to work for the Somali government: they were marched through neighbourhoods where al-Shabab insurgents were hiding and told to point out their former comrades. The faces of intelligence agents were covered, but the identities of the boys - some as young as 10 - were rarely concealed, according to the children. Several of boys were killed, while one tried to hang himself while in custody.
In Galkayo, central Somalia about 30 former child combatants have been kept in a one-room building since being captured in late March and have faced ISA interrogations, according to several relief workers. One Somali security official confirmed that hundreds of children remain in ISA facilities and are used as intelligence assets. In 2015 UNICEF recorded more than 300 cases of children being used as soldiers by Somali forces.
The African Union United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) has launched a campaign in west Darfur, Sudan, to raise awareness of the need to end the recruitment and use of children by armed forces and groups across the region. The campaign briefs internally displaced persons on the seriousness of violating children's rights and urges communities to discourage children younger than 18 years old from enlisting in the armed forces or armed groups. It also urges all parties involved to report any forms of abuse or violations of child rights to child protection officers and local authorities for investigation.
The Israeli district court in Jerusalem has convicted a 14-year-old Palestinian boy of two counts of attempted murder for allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack in an Israeli settlement in last year. Ahmad Salih Manasra was found guilty by the court of carrying out a stabbing attack on 12 October 2015 in East Jerusalem, injuring two Israelis. Ahmad, who was 13 at the time of the attack, sustained serious wounds after an Israeli driver hit him with his car following the stabbing. Video footage which went viral showed the Palestinian boy lying in pain on the ground after being hit by the car, while an Israeli bystander shouted repeatedly: "Die, you son of a whore!" and another was captured imploring a police officer to shoot him.
Amnesty Chile has started a campaign to push for legal reforms that would allow the investigation and trial of members of the military before civilian courts when they are suspected of attacking civilians. Members of the military police are currently subject to investigation by the military justice system when suspected of misconduct against a member of the public.
Such was the case when a 16-year-old boy was shot dead by a military policeman during a protest. The man received a sentence of just three years, which was later reduced to 461 days. Read about the campaign on Twitter with the hashtag #JuezyParte (Judge and Jury).
Eleven children under the age of six, including four babies, are among 149 people to have died this year following their detention in horrendous conditions in the notorious Giwa military detention centre in Maiduguri, Nigeria. A report by Amnesty International found that around 1,200 people are currently detained at Giwa barracks in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. Many were arbitrarily rounded up during mass arrests, often with no evidence against them. Once inside the barracks, they are incarcerated without access to the outside world or trial. At least 120 of those detained are children and at least 12 children have died since February.
Al Jazeera’s Witness programme has released the first full-length interview with Omar Khadr, a Canadian born ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee, since his release on bail in May 2015. The interview covers his arrest and subsequent detention and conditions at the controversial military prison. The son of Ahmed Khadr, an alleged al-Qaida financier, Omar was captured in Afghanistan in 2002 at the age of 15 and spent more than 13 years in detention. During his imprisonment, Khadr was subjected to both physical and psychological torture. Upon capture Khadr was strapped to a stretcher for prolonged periods of interrogation, and threatened with rape.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has published its annual World Press Freedom Index, ranking 180 countries according to the level of freedom available to journalists. Countries affected by conflict unsurprisingly ranked low on the index.
In Africa, the most pronounced deterioration was seen in South Sudan (140th), which fell 15 places in the Index. In a country torn by civil war since 2013, journalists fell victim to the conflict’s violence and a campaign of intimidation by the authorities. Meanwhile a collapse in the rule of law and an increase in violence account for the decline in Nigeria (116th), where journalists were threatened by both Boko Haram and agents of the State. The Middle East and North Africa continued to be one of the world’s most dangerous regions for journalists, who in many places were trapped between rival factions, radical groups and governments. Media freedom declined in the Americas in 2015 because of mounting political tension in many countries fuelled by economic recession, uncertainty about the future and weakening solidarity between communities.
The UN and League of Arab States recently signed an agreement to strengthen collaboration on preventing of conflict-related sexual violence in the Arab region. The agreement is meant to mobilise political commitment and collaboration in combating rape and other instances of conflict-related sexual violence, particularly in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. This will include better information sharing and analysis, training and capacity building, and the provision of medical and psychosocial services to survivors and their families.
A review of a mechanism introduced by the UN aiming to prevent violence in conflicts, including gender-based violence against women and girls, has been made public. The review, led by the former Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict, Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, showed that 15 years after the Security Council adopted Resolution 1325 in 2000, officially establishing the mechanism, actors involved in mediation and conflict resolution still resist the inclusion of women in peacekeeping processes. Among its recommendations, the review calls for the protection of women and girls’ rights at all times and for efforts to ensure that strategies aimed at countering violent extremism do not stereotype or instrumentalise women and girls.
According to the UN, up to 7,000 women and girls could be victims of abduction and sex slavery in Nigeria. Girls have suffered forced recruitment, forced marriage, sexual slavery and rape at the hands of Boko Haram; they have also been used to carry bombs. Those who have escaped report undergoing a systematic programme to train them as bombers, according to UNICEF. In May 2015, it was reported that children had been used to perpetrate three-quarters of all suicide attacks in Nigeria since 2014. Many of the bombers had been brainwashed or coerced.
A new UNICEF report states that 1.3 million children have been displaced by the conflict across the Lake Chad Basin, almost a million of whom are in Nigeria. Similarly, Human Rights Watch has reported the denial of education to one million children.
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Closing
Russian media outlets have released a public service announcement that seems to encourage children to enlist in the country’s army. The video is dedicated to the upcoming Victory Day celebrations to mark 70 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It is the story of a 10-year boy who was killed in the war of 1941-1945. The video shows a group of present-day schoolchildren who see the boy wearing a Soviet military uniform telling them how his family was killed during the war and how he worked at a plant casting shells and projectiles for the Soviet soldiers who fought on the frontline.
The schoolchildren argue the shells are too heavy for a child, and the ghost-boy replies: "Well, yes, but we were proud to know that our shells helped our soldiers fight German troops."
The ghost-boy says that he eventually joined the fighting. The schoolchildren ask him: "Were you not afraid to die?" The boy replies: "It does not matter. The important thing is that we won."
To read more about how military recruitment of children - whether voluntary or compulsory - violates their human rights, read our position and the role of international law in recruitment of under-18s, see our minimum ages paper.
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