From Child Labour News Service, June 02, 2000
After years of diplomatic wrangling and mounting public
pressure
New York:
An estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are currently
participating in armed conflicts in more than thirty countries around
the world.
Over a decade after the Convention on the Rights of the Child was
born, the UN has completed its child rights package. Unable to reach
consensus about the sensitive issues of child soldiers and child
prostitution when the Convention was first drafted, these issues had
been designated as topics of optional protocols to accompany the main
treaty. After years of diplomatic wrangling and mounting public
pressure the UN this morning formally adopted these additional texts.
The optional protocol on children in armed conflict establishes 18 as
the minimum age for participation in armed conflict, for any
compulsory recruitment, and for any recruitment or use in armed
conflict by armed groups. It calls on governments to raise their
minimum age for voluntary recruitment, but regrettably, still allows
governmental armed forces to accept voluntary recruits from the age
of 16, subject to certain safeguards.
"Until now, children as young as age fifteen could be legally
recruited and deployed into armed conflict," said Jo Becker,
Steering Committee Chair for the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child
Soldiers.
"The adoption of this new protocol by the General
Assembly signals that it is no longer acceptable to use children in war."
The Coalition urged all governments to sign the new protocol at the
upcoming Millennium Assembly of the UN in September, and to ratify it
as soon as possible. It also called on governments to adopt a
minimum age of at least eighteen for voluntary recruitment, and to
stipulate this age in binding declarations made at the time of
ratification.
An estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are currently
participating in armed conflicts in more than thirty countries around
the world.
The optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and
child pornography calls on state parties to prohibit these
activities:
Each State party is required to ensure the full coverage of certain
acts and activities under its criminal or penal law, whether the
offences are committed domestically or transnationally, or on an
individual or organised basis. The offences include, among other
things, offering, delivering or accepting a child for the purpose of
sexual exploitation, transfer of its organs for profit, or its
engagement in forced labour, and producing, distributing,
disseminating, or possessing child pornography.
The protocols were strongly supported by many of the UN member
states. On behalf of the European Union, the representative of
Portugal welcomed the adoptions and expressed hope that the protocols
would become important tools for the protection of children. Sweden
also expressed its support, although the Swedish representative was
careful to clarify that restrictions on child pornography should not
apply to an adult disguised as a child.
The optional protocols will be open for signature at the special
session entitled "Women 2000: gender equality, development and
peace for the twenty-first century", to be convened in New York from
June 5 to 9, and also at the World Summit for Social Development in Geneva.
Child Labour News Service
