More U.N. Member States Pledge Not To Use Child Soldiers
by ERICA LIEPMANN, Causecast Associate Editor
Certainly one of the world’s greatest evils is the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts around the globe. In the United States, probably the best known and most publicized use of child soldiers is in the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. The organization Invisible Children has brought national and international attention to the plight of Ugandan child soldiers and catapulted a youth movement around the cause. Just like the situation in Uganda, children in countries all over the world are coerced or forced into fighting in armies and rebel groups.
Responding to this situation, the United Nations issued a declaration against child soldiers, known as the Paris Commitments, in 2007. Over the last few years, 76 member states have agreed to the declaration.
Today, eight more U.N. member nations have joined the ranks, including the Central African Republic and Senegal, nations known for internal instability and armed conflicts.
From the U.N. News Centre:
Moves to prevent the criminal use and abuse of young boys and girls recruited into armed groups around the world took a step forward today as eight more countries endorsed a United Nations declaration aimed at ending the scourge and bringing to justice those who violate children in armed conflict.
“2009 has been a terrible year for children,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, at event where individual countries formally endorsed the Paris Commitments, which require nations to do all they can to help end the recruitment of children in armed conflicts.
Children continue to be forcibly recruited, abducted, maimed or killed in conflicts around the globe, and conflicts in Gaza, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan have led to high numbers of casualties and large-scale displacements, she said.
Photo by e53, flickr.
- Posted by Causecast
Related causes: Human Rights
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