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Ending Child Soldiering
Child soldiering in Africa and globally can end, but it will not end until the wars that drive child soldiering are prevented, managed down and no longer plague society. This is because today’s wars are different from the wars of previous generations when armies largely fought opposing armies and civilian casualties were much fewer in number and by percentage. Today’s wars are not designed for armies to engage other armies. The strategies of today’s wars are to target and terrorize civilian populations. Part and parcel with these strategies is to use children to conduct the most brutal forms of atrocities against civilian populations. Children are more likely to commit atrocities because their moral barometers are less cultivated; they are also more vulnerable, impressionable and easily intimidated. Children are also expendable, provide a range of “extras” such as sex from young girls and child labor from young boys, and do not demand to be paid. Hence, children are often a soldier of choice. One cannot separate the use of children with the strategies of today’s wars. Unless today’s wars are ended, all the movements and campaigns in the world will merely reduce child soldiering, but never end it. Finally, the issue of war is squarely before us.

Not everyone agrees with this analysis, of course. Some believe that the best chances of ending child soldiering lie largely with strengthening international law, including enforcement of laws, treaties and protocols that prohibit the abduction and recruitment of children as soldiers.

Undoubtedly, strengthening international law that prohibits child soldiering is a necessity, and the process of doing so also elevates awareness of the critical needs of children who are vulnerable to becoming soldiers. Of course, in many ways, international law already prohibits various scenarios and degrees of child soldiering. For instance, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) makes it illegal for any armed combatant force, government or rebel, to recruit children under the age of fifteen or to engage in sexual slavery. Either may be prosecuted as war crimes although the statute begs the question about recruiting children fifteen or over. Western nations do not permit fifteen year olds to join their militaries. Why such lax standards when it comes to children who are vulnerable to coercive recruitment in Africa and the Global South? Knowing they can recruit fifteen year olds, will army commanders really check birth certificates?

Then there is the “Optional” branch of international law. The human rights community deserves full credit for their years of ardent work seeking and garnering increased international consensus around the prohibition of either conscription or coercive recruitment of children under 18 into military forces. This has resulted in the Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. While this is a step forward, should we celebrate a situation in which it is legal to commit atrocities against civilians at the age of 18 while the same acts are prohibited if carried out by 17 year olds? Further, it should be unnecessary to define the term “optional.”

Another presumed step forward is the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC). This is a regional standard that sets regional objectives to prohibit recruitment of children as soldiers in Africa. Recently, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, has declared West Africa a child-soldier free zone.

Clearly, there are good intentions that emanate from the protocols, proclamations and condemnations, including the African Union’s strong statements against child soldiering. However, there are no teeth to back up these barks, and it is time to add other strategies to the optional protocols and international laws that permit children who are fifteen years old to participate in wars as soldiers.

International law especially needs strengthening in terms of enforcement. If laws against child soldiering are still vague and unprotective of children, laws against torture, slavery and genocide are far more clear and well defined. The ad hoc international criminal trials against defendant parties from Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone demonstrate the potential of international law being enforced against wrongdoers who lead violence against civilians. However, the fact that scores of national leaders and armies commit countless reigns of terror upon civilian populations yet there are only three full fledged prosecutions of these events – after the fact – illustrates the impotent nature of international law as it applies to the rights of civilian populations to be free from torture, slavery and genocide and to punish those who commit egregious crimes against humanity. In theory, at least, the ICC has the potential to provide more human rights protections than currently exist, except for the fact that it is untested and several major nations, including the U.S. and China, have indicated they do not intend to be subject to prosecutions.

Clearly, civilians affected by human rights violations – massacres, rapes, torture and mutilation – should be afforded full protection by international law. This means, practically, that the people of Northern Uganda and Eastern DRC should have someone to call, some place to turn, some international forum to intervene and prevent or end the violence being perpetrated against them. Since child soldiering is so much a part of this violence – including the means by which children are abducted as soldiers and the violence inflicted upon children by armies – international law that intervenes to prevent or end conflict would also favorably impact on ending child soldiering.

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