Meet on child soldiers begins tomorrow

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MAY 13. It is estimated that at least 3,00,000 children below 18 years of age are part of state and guerilla armies in 30 countries around the world. Of them, 1,20,000 are reported to be in Africa and 70,000 in the Asia-Pacific region.

Within Asia, the worst-affected countries are Afghanistan, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Thousands of such children, who serve as weapons of war and end up its victims, will be the focus of a landmark conference to be held in Kathmandu from May 15 to 18.

Nearly 150 delegates from countries across the region are expected to take part in the Kathmandu initiative, which will bring together NGO representatives, U.N. child rights' experts, ex-child soldiers and senior Government and military officials.

An international network of NGOs, called the `Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers' (CSUCS), is organising the Kathmandu conference in collaboration with UNICEF and the Government of Nepal.

A country-specific report on the use of child soldiers in national armies and armed groups in Asia was released here on Friday to serve as a reference document for the conference.

The convener of the Coalition, Mr. Rory Mungoven, and the Advocacy Director of Save the Children, Sweden, Mr. Henrik Haggstrom, spoke of the challenges involved in demobilising child soldiers and helping them reintegrate into society. The political and legal questions on the issue and their significance for regional security were also highlighted.

Both Mr. Mungoven and Mr. Haggstrom said India was not actively engaged in the issue but going by its stature and population, it could take a lead in pushing for a global ban on child soldiers.

Recruitment in the Indian Army was ``complicated'' and there were ``loopholes in the system'', they said. Information provided by the Government suggested that the minimum age of recruitment into the Army was 16, but owing to varying periods of training, they were enrolled into regular service only after the age of 18.

The Coalition's report also pointed towards the recruitment of children by armed groups in Kashmir such as the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Common reasons that prompted voluntary enlistment were poverty, lack of education, traumas of displaced families and glamour of an army career.

The report also referred to the existence of 75 `bal-sanghams', founded by the Peoples' War Group in Andhra Pradesh with over 800 children in their ranks, besides ``young boys and men organised into local cells for physical and ideological training by Hindu extremist groups linked with the Bharatiya Janata Party''.

The speakers hoped, the conference would spin-off more active networking in key countries such as India.

At present, the CSUCS is working with 40 national coalitions but needs more support to get a new international criminal code, which would help prosecute military and rebel leaders for using child soldiers.

Mr. Mungoven and Mr. Haggstrom were of the opinion that lack of awareness in the Asia-Pacific region about social mobilisation programmes to rehabilitate child soldiers had resulted in a large number of children getting drawn into armed conflicts.

The report stated that Myanmar was one of the largest sources of child soldiers in the world, while in Sri Lanka girls were made equal partners in revolutionary struggles.

Since it was a challenging task to take child soldiers out of battlefields and help them live normal lives, the need to develop suitable working strategies for preventive action was strongly felt.

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