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Summary: A campaign to highlight the effects of
the arms trade on children and
young people.
Paying the Price
Children and the arms trade
In the new year CAAT will be launching a campaign to highlight
the effects of the arms trade on children and young people.
Below, Chris Cole introduces the campaign and explains why we
have chosen this as a focus.
Over the past few years there has been growing concern
amongst Non-Governmental Organisations, governments and the
United Nations about the effect of armed conflict on children. This
is due in no small part to the work of Graca Machel, wife of Nelson
Mandela. In her ground-breaking 1996 report for the UN, Graca
Machel stated that around the world “millions of children are
caught up in conflicts in which they are not merely bystanders but
targets.” Elsewhere she writes, “Wars have always victimized
children and other non-combatants, but modern wars are
exploiting, maiming and killing children more callously and more
systematically than ever.”
CAAT has watched this growing campaign with mixed feelings. On
the one hand we are of course overjoyed that something is at
last being done on behalf of children everywhere who suffer
because of armed conflict. On the other hand we are dismayed
that one of the major causes of armed conflict around the globe –
the international arms trade – has not only to a large extent
been overlooked, but receives vast unequivocal support from
governments.
According to UNICEF, in the last decade child victims of armed
conflict have included 2 million children killed, 4 - 5 million children
disabled, 12 million children left homeless, more than 1 million
children orphaned or separated from their parents and some 10
million children psychologically traumatized.
This means that on average more than 2,000 children are killed,
maimed or disabled by war every single day. As UN Secretary
General, Kofi Annan commented in a recent report: “Children are
disproportionately affected by armed conflict and their needs
merit our concerted attention, as both the Security Council and
the General Assemblyhave affirmed. Children, caught in the midst
of critical stages of personal development, are affected by war
more profoundly than are adults.”
In Sierra Leone, for example, the on-going war has had a terrible
effect on children. Thousands of children have been killed and 1.8
million children internally displaced because of the war. Despite
this, in May 2000 the British government agreed to supply 5,000
rounds of ammunition, 4,000 mortar rounds and £10 million of
other military equipment to the armed forces of Sierra Leone,
which consist partly of raw recruits and partly of troops loyal to
former coup leaders. There are reports that some of the weapons
have found their way to 'irregulars'. It is inevitable that this arms
transfer will lead to more suffering for the children of Sierra
Leone.
And It’s Getting Worse
Between 1945 and 1992 there were 149 major wars, killing more
than 23 million people. Whereas in the past the vast majority of
these would have been soldiers, by the end of the 1990s nearly
90 % of war-victims were non-combatants and at least half of
these were children. There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, ‘advances’ in weapons technology mean that weapons
are more deadly than in the past, and traditional restraints on
their use have weakened. Aerial bombardment, for example,
increases the conflict zone to include potentially the whole
nation, whilst the use of weapons such as cluster-bombs and fuel-
air explosives makes indiscriminate killing of civilians easier and
much more likely. Conversely, the spread of relatively
unsophisticated small arms has also led to a massive increase in
the number of child victims. As Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of
UNICEF has put it, “Small arms have probably extinguished more
young lives than they have ever protected.”
Another reason for the increase in the number of child victims is
that warfare today is much more likely to be between groups
within countries or regions than between two opposing national
armies, whilst landmines (and other anti-personnel weapons
such as cluster bombs) continue to be a massive cause of death
of and injury to children. The United Nations estimate that
between 8,000 and 10,000 children are victims of landmines each
year. As Amnesty International has succinctly put it, when we talk
about anti-personnel weapons, in reality we mean anti-children
weapons.
Other Effects
However it is not just the obvious effect of armed conflict that we
need to think about. Inevitably, where there is armed conflict,
famine and disease follow. In poor countries, where children are
already vulnerable to malnutrition and disease, armed conflict can
increase death rates by up to 24 times. And of course children
suffer from the lack of resources which, instead of being spent on
education and health, are spent on armaments. South Africa, for
instance, has just agreed a £3 bn arms deal – which includes BAe
Systems’ Hawk and Gripen aircraft - despite the fact that a recent
UN report detailed the fact that around 50 % of the population
live on less than $2 per day and that only around 50 % of
children are in secondary education. From the beginning of next
year, CAAT will be raising awareness of the effects of the arms
trade on children and challenging arms companies and the UK
government on their role in making children pay the price for
Britain’s arms dealing.
If you would like more details about this campaign please contact
the CAAT office. A campaigning pack will be available in the new
year.