The number of conflicts in which children are used as soldiers has dropped sharply in the past four years, to 17 from 27, a research report released this week by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers said.
The report in some ways reflects the now nearly universal consensus that children should not be used in combat. The concept has seeped into the consciousness of even the most hardened militias as international justice has singled out notorious figures who have abused children, like Charles Taylor of Liberia and Joseph Kony of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda.
But it also reflects the reality that when conflict breaks out, particularly in fragile states, children are quickly swept up.
As countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone, in which thousands of children were forced to fight, have ended their brutal wars in the last five years, newer conflicts in the Darfur region of Sudan and the Central African Republic have ensnared yet more children.
STILL AT RISK
In Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East, children continue to be used as combatants, the report said.
“This downward trend is more the result of conflicts ending than the impact of initiatives to end child soldier recruitment and use,” the report concludes. “Indeed, where armed conflict does exist, child soldiers will almost certainly be involved.”
The report also found that a handful of stubborn governments continued to use children in their armed forces and paramilitaries — countries including Myanmar, Chad, Congo and Somalia.
The report estimates that in Chad alone, 7,000 to 10,000 children were press-ganged into fighting in 2006 and last year, with much of the recruitment taking place on the volatile eastern border with Sudan. Chad has been fighting rebels based in Darfur, a region whose five-year-old conflict has metastasized into Chad and the Central African Republic.
‘IDEAL’ FIGHTERS
As one Chadian army commander put it in an interview with Human Rights Watch, “child soldiers are ideal because they don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill.”
The report also found major shortcomings in programs to reintegrate child combatants after conflicts end. Donors have spent millions to ease fighters back into civilian life, but children are often left out.
In the Central African Republic, some 7,500 fighters were demobilized and given cash and training to start new lives. Only 26 children participated despite the fact that children were believed to make up a large portion of the fighters.
In Congo, where a regional war killed more people than any other conflict since World War II, some 30,000 children are believed to have fought, but 11,000 of them received no help as money for the demobilization program ran dry, the report said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of