BBC News | World | Amnesty declares

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Subject: BBC News | World | Amnesty declares war on child armies


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            Monday, January 11, 1999 Published at 03:59 GMT World
            Amnesty declares war on child armies
          
            Amnesty says 300.000 child soldiers are fighting in wars
       
            A new generation of weapons light enough for 10-year-olds to
use is helping to create armies of child soldiers, according to Amnesty 
International.
                        The BBC's Chris Tye reports: "Some youngsters 
have been forced to kill one another"
            The human rights group estimates there are 300,000 child 
soldiers around the world in a new report which supports a campaign to
raise the recruitment age for armies from 15 to 18.

            "The development of lightweight automatic weapons that are 
light enough and simple enough means that 10-year-olds can carry and use 
these weapons as effectively as an adult," says human rights lawyer 
Rachel Brett.
                        A young Karen rebel fighter in Burma
            "Once you indoctrinate the children and particularly if you 
provide them with drugs and alcohol they become very effective killers, 
very effective torturers. Once you break that inhibition it tends to go 
on.''

            She adds that young children could not have fought in the 
same way in World War II because weapons were far heavier and more 
complicated.

            The minimum recruitment age of 15 was laid down as part of 
what Amnesty describes as "a weak compromise" when the United Nations 
Convention on the Rights of the Child was negotiated in 1989.

            It has since been ratified by every country except the 
United States and Somalia.


            Ms Brett says that in practice, because of a lack of birth 
registers in many countries, children aged between 12 and 14 were being 
passed off as 15. And some armed groups even recruited children under 
10.

            Girls used as sex slaves

            Uganda, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Sierra Leone are among 
countries where armed groups recruit children.

            The Amnesty report, 'In The Firing Line', says the Lord's 
Resistance Army (LRA) rebel group in Uganda has systematically abducted 
and recruited up to 8,000 children, mostly between 13 and 16.
                        These children were caught while reportedly 
fighting for the Tamil Tigers
            "Children are beaten, murdered and forced to fight 
well-armed government troops. They are chattels owned by the LRA 
leadership. Girls are raped and used as sexual slaves," it adds.

            One 15-year-old girl, forcibly recruited into the LRA, told 
Amnesty how she was ordered to kill another child who tried to flee, 
forced to watch as a boy was hacked to death for failing to raise the 
alarm, and given 35 days' training before being sent off to fight.

            The release of the report coincides with a meeting of the UN 
Human Rights Commission to deliberate an "optional protocol" to the 1989 
convention to raise the minimum recruitment age.

            The protocol would be adopted by countries if they wished, 
and would not automatically become part of the convention.

            Amnesty also said it hoped the establishment of an 
International Criminal Court would make it possible to put on trial 
those who used child fighters.


            Rory Mungoven, the director of Amnesty's Asia programme, 
says: "Sooner or later someone will be held accountable for the 
recruitment of children. That is a precedent we can all look forward 
to."