Yemen's Child Soldiers Go To War

[grantcart]

Source: EU News Network

As Yemen's beleaguered government launches a new offensive against al-Qaida, the other conflict in the troubled Arabian peninsula state takes a shocking twist: The regime and tribal rebels in the north are both using child soldiers, according to aid officials.

Child soldiers have been a feature of warfare throughout history, although these days there are international laws that prohibit the use of children under 18 in conflicts. But they are difficult to enforce and are widely ignored, even though persistent failure to prevent children taking part in combat is considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court.

In Yemen, one of the most impoverished states in the Arab world, there are three times as many guns as there people, and young boys learn to carry an AK-47s from an early age.

But as the country descends into chaos with the government fighting a stubborn rebellion by Shiite tribes in the north, an increasingly violent secessionist movement in the south and a resurgent al-Qaida, the use of children by the various combatant forces is increasing, rights groups report.

As many as 500-600 children are killed or wounded through direct involvement in tribal combat in Yemen every year, according to Abdul-Rahman al-Marwani, chairman of a local non-governmental organization working to prevent the use of child soldiers.

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. secretary-general's special representative for children and armed conflict, said "large numbers" of teenage boys are being recruited for the fighting.

The northern Houthi rebels in particular do this, said Ahmad al-Qurashi, director of the Sanaa-based Seyaj Organization for Childhood Protection.

Read more: http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=70320&catid=855

[grantcart]

1. ...

[Zhade]

2. An absolute travesty. But what can you expect?

Other countries see our failure to hold war criminals accountable, and it convinces them no one really cares about international law. And as always, the children suffer.

[WriteDown]

3. Considering many of the people who fought in the US revolution were under 18....

When exactly did this take effect?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. I don't think we're talking about people in their late teens here.

Or musket-era drummer boys.

[WriteDown]

9. Some light reading...

This has gone on throughout history

http://www.amazon.com/Armies-Young-Soldiers-Terrorism-Childhood/dp/product-description/0813535689


and

http://www.worldrevolution.org/Projects/Webguide/GuideArticle.asp?ID=9

[grantcart]

6. when rebel leaders in various countries rounded up children put them

in concentration camps and refused to feed them if they didn't pick up a rifle or help in the camps.


http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-war-crimes-congo,0,7994709.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sun-sentinel%2Fnews%2Fnationworld+(Nation+%26+World+News+%2F+South+Florida+Sun-Sentinel)

[WriteDown]

7. Maybe its best to have a gun so as not to be raped by the UN

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1538476/UN-staff-accused-of-raping-children-in-Sudan.html

[grantcart]

5. Actually the opposite is true. The UN testifies that increased prosecution

of rebel leaders has led to many of them abandoning the practice.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-war-crimes-congo,0,7994709.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sun-sentinel%2Fnews%2Fnationworld+(Nation+%26+World+News+%2F+South+Florida+Sun-Sentinel)

The OP was referring to an increase in Yemen, particularly among Al Queda allies in the use of children as combatants. In other areas like the Congo prosecutions are going on and rebel leaders in some cases are releasing their child soldiers as a part of negotiated settlements.


THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The U.N.'s special envoy on child soldiers said Thursday the prosecution of rebel leaders for exploiting children in war is persuading some groups to release underage fighters.

Radhika Coomaraswamy told the International Criminal Court that courts must extend their protection to children used as cannon fodder or sex slaves in conflicts around the globe, and that such cases already are having an effect.

Coomaraswamy was testifying as an expert witness at the trial of alleged warlord Thomas Lubanga, who has pleaded innocent to charges of using child soldiers in a brutal conflict in the eastern Congo region of Ituri in 2002-2003.


. . .


Such court cases have "sent many armed groups to us ... willing to negotiate action plans for the release of children," said Coomaraswamy.

She cited the release earlier Thursday of 3,000 former child soldiers from detention camps in Nepal as an example of former fighters being returned to society.

[Goldstein1984]

8. Everyone seems to be in agreement that children as soldiers

is a bad thing.

Can we go one step further and agree that the same logic and morality that applies to not sending children onto the battlefield also applies to not killing children when they wake up and find that the battlefield has come to them?

It would be ironic if a nation that has been accused of killing an average of three children a day in the course of its war on terror, and whose soldiers may have participated in a massacre of students, protested too loudly about others making their children soldiers.

(For the record, I'm not an "Obama hater," since criticism of our foreign policy seems to be viewed as the equivalent by some. I like Obama. I want to see him succeed. I send him a letter almost every day with comments and suggestions. Being a disappointed Obama critic is nothing like being an Obama hater, especially when one takes as much trouble as I do to communicate my concerns.)