Campaign against the enlistment of child soldiers and their participation in armed conflicts
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 7 April 2000 (16th Sitting) (see Doc. 8676, report of the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mrs Pozza Tasca; and Doc. 8696, opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, rapporteur: Mr Tabajdi). Text adopted by the Assembly on 7 April 2000 (16thSitting).
- Thesaurus
1. The Assembly supports the action carried out for many years by its Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee to defend and promote children’s rights; it confirms its strong commitment to further their cause, be they children from within or outside Europe, as already stated in its
Recommendation 1286 (1996) on a European strategy for children.
2. In the modern world, children are involved in armed conflicts in about
fifty countries; they are most often victims of them and sometimes also
combatants enlisted or conscripted in contempt of their rights, their physical
integrity and their lives. 300 000 child soldiers of under 18 years of age,
girls and boys, are thought to be taking part in armed conflicts all over the
world. The recent conflicts in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo yesterday and
Chechnya today, provide evidence of this.
3. The phenomenon is growing as a result of changes in the nature of
conflicts, most of which are lengthy civil wars, or wars between adjoining
regions, fought with inexpensive, light firearms. Once enlisted, children
become instruments of war. The legal rules governing armed conflicts are not
observed and even states with a longstanding democratic tradition do not
protect children’s rights as they should.
4. It is the duty of the Council of Europe member states to react if they do
not wish to see barbarism invade their societies and lose their common
fundamental values. The international community cannot wait for a hypothetical
consensus to end the arms trade; it must reply by declaring the forced
enlistment of child soldiers of under 18 to be illegal, in the same way that
anti-personnel mines were banned.
5. The Assembly therefore calls upon the member states of the Council of
Europe and states enjoying observer status with the Council of Europe:
5.1 to undertake to end permanently in their
own countries the enlistment and participation of children under 18 years of
age, both girls and boys, in armed forces and in armed conflicts, by modifying
their legislation and current practice if necessary;
5.2 to
express this undertaking at international level by ratifying:
a International Labour Organisation Convention
No. 182 (1999) on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which forbids, alongside
slavery, the sale of children, serfdom etc., the forced or compulsory
enlistment of children for use in armed conflicts;
b the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child that would forbid the recruitment and participation in armed
conflict of all children below the age of 18;
c the Rome Statute (1998) setting up the International Criminal Court
to judge war crimes and crimes against humanity;
d the two additional protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions relating
to the protection of victims of armed conflict;
e the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the
1967 Protocol thereto.
6. The Assembly invites the Unites States of
America to immediately ratify the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights
of the Child.
7. The Assembly calls upon states that have signed and
ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and
especially Council of Europe member states, to support, in particular through
voluntary contributions, the Special Representative for Children in Armed
Conflict appointed by the Secretary General of the UN as one of his initiatives
and actions to eradicate this phenomenon.
8. The Assembly also urges
Council of Europe member states and states enjoying Observer status with the
Council of Europe:
8.1 to allow and foster,
everywhere and at all times, access to humanitarian aid for the civilian
population in the event of armed conflict, taking particular account of
children’s needs;
8.2 to give priority to the protection of
children in processes to restore peace and in post-war co-operation programmes,
whether bilateral or multilateral or conducted by international organisations.
9. The Assembly calls upon states that have signed
and ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to
draw up policies to aid development in countries where there is conflict, in
order to:
9.1 stop the recruitment of child
soldiers and demobilise those who have already been enlisted;
9.2 ensure that measures are taken for these children’s physical,
psychological and social rehabilitation;
9.3 foster their
reintegration into civilian life and, in particular, into a suitable education
system.
10. Finally, the Assembly urges states that
have signed and ratified the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of
the Child to promote education for peace and tolerance through
awareness-raising campaigns, particularly in countries where the risk of
conflict is high.
11. The Assembly invites the member states of the
Council of Europe and states enjoying Observer status within the Council of
Europe to implement the decision by the UN Secretary General to set the minimum
age of recruits in national units participating in United Nations peacekeeping
forces at 18 years.
12. The Assembly also invites governments of member
states and states enjoying Observer status within the Council of Europe
implementing the debt relief agreements concluded by creditor countries at a
multilateral level to make cancellation of a country’s foreign debt conditional
on its undertaking to:
12.1 ratify the protocol
to the Untied Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and effectively
apply the ban on enlistment of under-eighteens and their participation in armed
conflicts;
12.2 employ in civilian activities any children or
young people below the age of 18 who have already been recruited.
