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Summary: In what they called a breakthrough in the campaign to remove children from combat in the Philippines, U.N. officials said Friday that Communist rebels had agreed to ensure that there are no minors in their ranks.
(8 April 2011) - At a news briefing, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, announced that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines had agreed in principle to cooperate with the United Nations to identify and remove any child combatants from the New People’s Army, the Communist movement’s armed wing, which has waged a guerrilla campaign for the past four decades. The Philippine government has accused the Communists of using child soldiers, but the rebels insist it is their policy not to recruit combatants younger than 18. “It is the first time that we have been able to reach out to the N.D.F.P., and I am hopeful that we will be able to sign an action plan as soon as possible,” Ms. Coomaraswamy said of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. The country’s largest Muslim rebel group, the , signed a similar plan with the United Nations in August 2009. On Friday, Ms. Coomaraswamy said 600 combatants younger than 18 in the Islamic front had been identified and registered so far and that the number could exceed a thousand once the registration process is completed in nine months. Under the plan, these children are to be removed from combat and related work — like spying, acting as couriers and doing chores for the insurgents — and to be reintegrated into their communities and provided with education and health care. “The point is to take them away from the combat areas and put them in schools,” she said. Ms. Coomaraswamy also cited headway in cooperation with the Philippine government. The military has agreed, for instance, to a U.N. offer of technical assistance for the armed forces’ Human Rights Office to assist in strengthening policies for the protection of children in conflict areas. In addition, she said, the military has been investigating allegations of abuses against children by government troops, like the wounding or killing of children in cross-fire and occupying schools during counterinsurgency operations. The Islamic front had tried to justify the presence of minors in its ranks by saying Islam defines the age of maturity for girls as 13 and boys as 14, but pressure from the international community forced it to take a second look at its policy. Ms. Coomaraswamy said the United Nations would monitor the front’s compliance with the action plan and make sure that the children, whose relatives are often rebels themselves, are not re-enlisted. She said that, after the registration of the Islamic front’s child combatants is complete, her office would hold a ceremony not just to mark the occasion, but to remind the public of the need to keep children out of conflict and that recruiting them for combat has legal consequences. Once the guerrilla groups have complied with their respective action plans, they can be removed from the U.N. list of movements that violate children’s rights. The Philippines is among 22 countries in the world that the United Nations says have “situations of concern” because of the use of child combatants. “The Philippines does not have the egregious cases as we have in the Congo and the Sudan,” Ms. Coomaraswamy said. “It’s not as widespread as in Africa, but it is still a problem that has to be dealt with.” Ms. Coomaraswamy said her office was also trying to reach out to , the Islamic separatist movement that the United States has listed as a terrorist group. “At the moment, they don’t seem that interested,” she said. More Information:
pdf: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/09/world/asia/09iht-philippines09.html?_r=1