# data[].attributes.headline
Should Child Soldiers be Prosecuted for Their Crimes?

# data[].attributes.subject
Should Child Soldiers be Prosecuted for Their Crimes?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
JOHANNESBURG

International human rights law meanders between the vague and the hazy when it comes to its stance on the age of criminal responsibility and what, if any, punishments should be imposed on child soldiers guilty of war crimes.

The godfather of human rights laws, the Geneva Conventions, oblige all member states to act on grave breaches of human rights, but does not stipulate the age of criminal responsibility.

Related: Child soldiers

Robert Young, deputy permanent observer and legal adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) based in New York, told IRIN international humanitarian law (IHL) remains "silent" on the age of responsibility for perpetrators of grave human rights abuses, such as wilful killing, torture and inhumane treatment.

International Criminal Court (ICC) Article 26 prevents the court from prosecuting anyone under the age of 18, but not because it believes children should be exempt from prosecution for international crimes, "but rather that the decision on whether to prosecute should be left to States," says the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for children and armed conflict ( Working Paper Number 3: Children and Justice During and in the Aftermath of Armed Conflict, September 2011). "[The] exclusion of children from the ICC jurisdiction avoided an argument between States on the minimum age for international crimes," it noted.

The age of criminal responsibility varies from country to country, from 7-16, but the bar is most commonly set at 14.

Although IHL does not set a minimum age for criminal responsibility for international crimes, it is argued that a yardstick has been laid down for some form of indemnity through IHL's recognition that recruitment of child soldiers under 15 was a war crime.

The Children and Justice During and in the Aftermath of Armed Conflict report says: "If a child under the age of 15 is considered too young to fight, then he or she must also be considered too young to be held criminally responsible for serious violations of IHL while associated with armed forces or armed groups."

"Children are often desired as recruits because they can be easily intimidated and indoctrinated. They lack the mental maturity and judgment to express consent or to fully understand the implications of their actions... and are pushed by their adult commanders into perpetrating atrocities," the report said.

That children should be held accountable for their crimes during conflicts was acknowledged by the report, but "more effective and appropriate methods, other than detention and prosecution are encouraged, enabling children to come to terms with their past and the acts they committed."

The report said child soldiers should not be prosecuted "simply for association with an armed group or for having participated in hostilities... There are instances where children are accused of crimes under national or international law and are prosecuted before a criminal court. Prosecution of a child should always be regarded as a measure of last resort and the purpose of any sentence should be to rehabilitate and reintegrate the child into society."

Victims and perpetrators

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) did not cite a minimum age for criminal responsibility, but no one under 18 appeared before the tribunals. The Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) provided the court with jurisdiction over any person above 15, but the court's prosecutor decided against indicting children for war crimes because of their dual status as both victims and perpetrators.

If minor children who have committed serious war crimes are not prosecuted, this could be an incentive for their commanders to delegate to them the dirtiest orders, aiming at impunity

It may appear a grey area easily resolved by providing indemnity for crimes committed by child soldiers under the age of 15, but Radhika Coomaraswamy, SRSG for children and armed conflict, noted - in a 2010 article for the International Journal of Children's Rights: The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict - Towards Universal Ratification- that such a provision could be perversely used.

"If minor children who have committed serious war crimes are not prosecuted, this could be an incentive for their commanders to delegate to them the dirtiest orders, aiming at impunity. For this reason the ICC and SCSL focus strongly on those persons most responsible for human rights and IHL violations and apply the concept of command responsibility to political and military leaders," Coomaraswamy said.

Command responsibility does not necessarily remove individual culpability for serious human rights violations by lower ranks or subordinates, but "rather it traces liability back up the chain of command," said legal adviser to the ICRC Young.

When child soldiers become adults

Dominic Ongwen was about 10 when he became a soldier with the Lord's Resistance Army in the 1980s.

The ICC issued an arrest warrant for him in October 2005 for crimes against humanity, including enslavement of children. However, jurisdiction by the court does not extend to crimes committed by people under 18, and before 2002 when the Rome Statute entered into force. The crimes cited are for when Ongwen was an adult.

"Ongwen is the first known person to be charged with the same war crimes of which he is also a victim," the Justice and Reconciliation Project, a Ugandan NGO concerned with transitional justice, said in a 2008 field note entitled Complicating Victims and Perpetrators in Uganda: On Dominic Ongwen.

"[Ongwen and other child soldiers] represent precisely the kind of complex political victims who, if excluded from justice pursuits, could give birth to the next generation of perpetrators in Uganda; generations marginalized by the judicial sector and who have nothing to gain from citizenship and nothing to lose from war," the field note observed.

The Lubanga case

Tomaso Falchetta, Child Soldiers International (CSI) legal and policy adviser, told IRIN child soldiers should be viewed as victims and the NGO opposed their prosecution, as emphasis should be on the criminal responsibility of the adult recruiters. CSI "does not advocate for a cut-off point [for the prosecution of child soldiers], as it is a difficult issue."

The first person to stand trial at the ICC for enlisting children under 15 was former Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) warlord Thomas Lubanga. His trial at The Hague is nearing completion after he allegedly recruited underage children into the Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (FPLC) during the conflict in Ituri, a district in the eastern DRC, between 2002 and 2003.

An international humanitarian law expert, who declined to be identified, told IRIN Lubanga's case was "tremendously important" as "it will make others pause and think... Every rebel leader must be aware of this case."

Falchetta said it was "difficult to provide an empirical judgement on that [Lubanga's ICC prosecution being a deterrent]", and rather that accountability needed to be enforced at the national state level to discourage the continued use of child soldiers.

The former DRC president, Laurent Kabila, said in 2000 the armed forces would demobilize all child soldiers but a year after he made the commitment, four DRC child soldiers aged 14-16 were granted clemency, after death sentences imposed by a military tribunal led to international condemnation from human rights organizations. A 14-year-old child soldier was reportedly executed the previous year.

Capital punishment for persons under 18 violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The DRC is party to both international human rights treaties.

"The DRC laws may be there [the use of child soldiers is illegal], but when it comes to implementation, investigation and prosecution [of adult recruiters], we've seen little of that," Falcetta said.

The CSI said in an April 2011 report (entitled Report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Advance of the DRC initial report on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict) that "hundreds of children remain in the ranks of the national armed forces (Forces Armées de la Republique Démocratique du Congo) despite legal and policy obligations to release them and government pledges to do so."

Prosecution of a child should always be regarded as a measure of last resort and the purpose of any sentence should be to rehabilitate and reintegrate the child into society

Laws of war

Matthew Happold of Hull University in the UK said in 2005 paper entitled The Age of Criminal Responsibility in International Criminal Law there were "good reasons" for regulating criminal responsibility of international crimes through international law as they were "often distinguished from crimes under national law because they transcend national boundaries and are of concern to the international community."

He said, in the paper presented at the Hague Academic Coalition's conference on international criminal responsibility, that from the perspective of a defendant, "it would seem wrong for an individual's liability under international law to depend upon the place of prosecution.... States are obliged to prosecute and punish offenders. Permitting States to decide their own age of criminal responsibility would allow them to determine the scope of their international obligations."

Child soldiers, like any other combatants are subjected to the Nuremburg principle that holds: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

ICC's Article 33 determines that acting on orders from superiors was not a defence of criminal responsibility but there are mitigating circumstances, and among them, is that a person may be relieved from prosecution if they did not know the order was unlawful.

However, the commission of "manifestly unlawful" crimes, such as genocide or crimes against humanity cannot be mitigated.

Young said the "so-called `defence of superior orders'... the [Nuremberg] principle that `I was just following orders' can no longer relieve any of us of criminal (and moral) responsibility for unconscionable acts we commit at the behest of others."

However, Rule 155 of Customary IHL, provided leeway, where "coercion and duress may provide exceptions... and one can quickly imagine how this principle might mitigate the responsibility of a child soldier who was forcibly recruited and forced, under threat of harm, to commit war crimes," ICRC adviser Young said.

go/am/oa/cb

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Should child soldiers be prosecuted for their crimes?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
JOHANNESBURG International human rights law meanders between the vague and the hazy when it comes to its stance on the age of criminal responsibility and what, if any, punishments should be imposed on child soldiers guilty of war crimes.

# data[].attributes.headline
A Lords Resistance Army Commander Goes on Trial

# data[].attributes.subject
A Lords Resistance Army Commander Goes on Trial

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In a mud and thatch hut on the edge of a city slum in northern Uganda, Lily Atong sits waiting for her husband to come home to help her care for their children. Atong has sevenchildren aged three to 17 and no income save for the money she makes selling handbags woven from red string and soda ring-pulls. As a result, she struggles to pay even basic school fees or provide her children with clothes.

Her plight is not unusual in poor communities across the world but she is not the only one looking for her husband. Atong was abducted when she was 12 by the Lord's Resistance Army and forced to be the 'bush wife' of Joseph Kony, the feared commander of the Lord's Resistance Army, who is the father of five of her children.

Kony has spread terror across vast swathes of central Africa, torturing, abducting, raping and forcing children to fight its pointless war for more than 30 years.

Over the past ten years, Kony and his ragtag army have been chased from their base in northern Uganda where he sought to create a quasi-religious state into the Democratic Republic of Congo and a remote area of South Sudan by African Union soldiers and U.S. Special Forces troops.

On Thursday, one of Kony's once most trusted commanders, Dominic Ongwen, will face 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court in The Netherlands, a court set up in 2002 with aim of helping countries to bring to justice perpetrators of the most vile acts where there were no facilities to try them in their own countries.

Ongen, known as the White Ant is accused of orchestrating massacres in at least four refugee camps during his time with the LRA. He handed himself in last December after falling out with Kony. More than two thousand victims have signalled their intent to the ICC to participate in his prosecution.

But despite the resources poured into the hunt for Kony, the ICC's most wanted man, he remains at large with a diminished band of just 120 fighters.

Evidence to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by the Enough Project in September last year suggested his fighters are poaching elephants in the DRC's Garamba National Park to buy weapons and uniforms for its soldiers.

Ofwono Opondo Ogaldin served with the LRA for 27 years after being abducted from his home aged 10 and escaped last year. He believes Kony will never give up fighting or hand himself in. "He will continue fighting but he has no real power now," he says in the garden of a hotel in Gulu, northern Uganda.

In a region still badly scarred by decades of war and atrocities, opinions are divided about the way to move on and whether the ICC or the Ugandan government is best-placed to decide how to help people heal.

Many feel strongly that Ongwen, a former child soldier himself, should not be prosecuted but instead sent home to benefit from a government amnesty offered to other former LRA soldiers. Among them is Alfred Arop, a former bodyguard to Joseph Kony, who said that the ICC is prolonging the demise of the LRA by trying to prosecute its commanders. "The ICC cannot stop the war. It will make the war continue because there are some people who have been abducted against their will but are given the post and rank of commander," he said. "That's not their will. That's not their will but if they think they have to pay they will never stop fighting."

Others are more practical about the necessity for LRA commanders to be punished when there are more pressing needs at home. Prisca Lanyero, one of scores of "bush wives" who was given to Ongwen when she was aged 12, scrapes a meagre living by selling charcoal. She believes society needs the LRA men to provide for their families more than it needs justice. "We face a lot of problems in the community. You get married but when they know your background, that you were LRA and you come with children, they abandon you," she says. "Most of our children are on the street now, not going to school because we cannot pay for them to go to school. To me I would say it was better if Dominic was just around and was going to stay home because he should take care of his children."

Lanyero and Atong were among hundreds of women who were abducted to serve as wives to senior LRA commanders and returned home with offspring who are frequently called "Kony's Children" and shunned by their communities. Some are physically handicapped because of injuries they suffered while in captivity, others have post-traumatic stress because of the horrors they experienced and all have missed out on years of formal education.

Janet Arach, from Watye Ki Gen, a charity working to rehabilitate communities torn apart by the LRA, says in an area where families have lived on the same land for generations, those displaced by conflict and shunned when they come home represent a ticking time-bomb without better support. "These children are growing up very bitter, they want to know their identity," she says. "They live in rented houses and they don't know their families. Particularly the boys, they want to know their father."

Lily Atong was first rescued by Ugandan troops in 2005, recaptured by Kony in 2006 before finally escaping with her children in 2007. She describes a man who was mostly kind to his scores of bush wives and who is tired of war but too scared to give it up.

She wears an ICC t-shirt with the slogan To Me, Justice Recognises Suffering, given to her, she says, by a team of investigators who visited her last year.

Despite Kony's crimes against her and other Africans, Atong wants him back in Uganda rather than in a European cell like Ongwen. "I feel that he should come back but not to me, he has many children, let him come and protect these children, care for these children because these children are suffering so much," she says.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Lords Resistance Army Commander Goes on Trial but Joseph Kony Still Eludes Justice

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The man who rampaged across central Africa for decades now leads a small band of followers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
In South Sudan, a Ghost of Wars Past: Child Soldiers (Published 2014)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) estimated last month that 9,000 children had been recruited into armed forces or other groups to fight in the South Sudan conflict.

# data[].attributes.headline
2 Paths for Yemen's War-Scarred Children

# data[].attributes.subject
2 Paths for Yemen's War-Scarred Children

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
According to the United Nations, one in two Yemeni children now suffers from stunted growth because of food shortages. Malnutrition has also left them vulnerable to illness. Teachers are not being paid, and 12,000 of the nation's 14,400 schools are effectively closed. More than 700,000 Yemenis - half of them children - have suffered from cholera.

Mohsina, whose family name has not been used to protect her identity, said in a telephone interview from a safe house in Sana, Yemen's capital, that during the month she spent with her new husband, he beat and raped her nightly, often leaving her bleeding and in too much pain to stand. So she convinced him that she wanted to contribute to the household finances by begging on the roadside.

"The minute I was on the street, I ran," said Mohsina, who is now 15.

Yemeni law does not set a legal age for marriage, nor does it criminalize marital rape.

Yemen's conflict began in 2014 when Shiite rebels from the north, known as the Houthis, allied with parts of the armed forces and stormed Sana, later pushing the internationally recognized government into exile. That led to the involvement of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in the conflict that followed, which has shattered the country, with competing administrations in the north and south.

The fighting has also forced many families to make the most of their dwindling assets. In some cases, those assets are their children.

"All my girlfriends are either getting married or praying for a divorce," Mohsina said.

Mohsina was forced to marry a man she did not know, Fawzy Mohamed, last winter after the potato chip factory where her father worked in Sana was destroyed in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition, which is supported by the United States.

Unable to find new work, her father, the family's sole breadwinner, accepted Mr. Mohamed's offer of a $1,300 dowry, she said.

She had never seen her husband, a distant cousin, before getting on a bus with a relative for an hourslong ride to his hometown with nothing but the clothes on her back. On the way, the relative told her that Mr. Mohamed worked as a garbage collector and already had another wife and children.

There was no wedding ceremony.

"When I got there, Fawzy told me to undress," Mohsina said. "I didn't want to, so he started kicking and slapping me."

After she managed to flee, she returned to Sana, where she lives with the family of Maged al-Ajmal, a wealthy tribal leader who has converted a room in his house into an informal shelter for abused girls.

He temporarily takes in about 10 girls fleeing early marriages every six months, he said. Mohsina is the seventh he has received this year.

Mohsina said her father refused to take her back, because it would mean returning the dowry. So Mr. Ajmal is trying to raise the money so that her husband will accept a divorce."What her husband did to her destroyed her psychologically," Mr. Ajmal said.

Neither her father nor her husband could be reached for comment.

The war has also preyed on boys' childhoods. Many child soldiers have been sent to the front lines by poverty-stricken parents who need their sons' meager pay of about $55 every three months - enough money to support a family of five for two weeks.

Before the war, the United Nations had documented about 900 child soldiers in Yemen. Now, it has found about 1,800, according to Ms. Relano. The actual number is assumed to be higher.

"I only joined the fight after I got sick of sleeping all day," said a 17-year-old fighter who joined the Houthis in Saada Province, near the Saudi border, last year. "Most of my classmates are now my comrades."

He and his father, a civil servant, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the rebels, who deny the presence of child soldiers in their ranks.

"He thinks there is no alternative," his father said. "He also knew I had no money, and he wanted to help."

As with early marriages, children's rights advocates say the war makes it hard to determine how widespread the use of child soldiers is, but they believe that it has spread in recent years and that it is more common among the Houthis than other armed groups.

Activists say the warring parties discreetly recruit children, many of them well under 18, flouting the country's minimum age restriction for military service.

"These officers tell the boys that they can't claim to be men or Yemenis without joining the fight," the father said. "It's a cruel thing to do to a child. They don't understand the risks they are taking, and they feel like they will be worthless if they don't go with their friends to fight."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
2 Paths for Yemen's War-Scarred Children: Combat, or Marriage

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
According to the United Nations, one in two Yemeni children now suffers from stunted growth because of food shortages. Malnutrition has also left them vulnerable to illness. Teachers are not being paid, and 12,000 of the nation's 14,400 schools are effectively closed. More than 700,000 Yemenis - half of them children - have suffered from cholera.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an unprecedented ruling in February 2021 when they convicted a Ugandan child soldier-turned commander of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Dominic Ongwen was convicted on 4 February 2021 of 70 counts of crimes including: murder, rape, sexual slavery, and torture committed during his time as a commander in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Can former child soldiers be held responsible for their acts despite being abducted and subjugated to violence and indoctrination from such a young age?

THE LORD'S RESISTANCE ARMY

The LRA emerged in northern Uganda in the aftermath of a government campaign of violence against the minority Acholi people-this sparked fear of genocide. Founded by Joseph Kony in 1987, the LRA initially appeared to be fighting on behalf of the Acholi people to overthrow the government for their repressive practices. However, the LRA's political project was much broader, it was aimed at the production of a new nation of "pure" Acholi people and the purging of all dissidents who did not ascribe to their spiritual ideology. This resulted in a violent retribution against the Acholi people who refused to join the group on the basis of a perceived collaboration with the government. Since 2010, the number of LRA attacks has decreased significantly and the group no longer operates in Uganda. However, it continues to survive in the border area between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

CHILD SOLDIERS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

One of the most dominant tactics employed by the LRA against the Acholi people was child abductions. It is estimated that nearly 30,000 children have been abducted over the last 30 years by the LRA. The use of child soldiers is prohibited under international law as stipulated under article 4 of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that "armed groups...should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the age of 18 years". The recruitment of child soldiers is prohibited in both international and non-international armed conflict under the Additional Protocol I and II of the Geneva Conventions, which also prohibit accepting voluntary enlistment. This means that, under international law, armed forces are obligated to refuse children below the age of 15 who voluntarily sign up to fight.

DOMINIC ONGWEN AND THE CONVICTION OF CHILD SOLDIERS

LRA fighters abducted Ongwen when he was 10 years old-the fighters forced him to become a child soldier through violence and manipulation.

Ongwen was believed to be around 40 years old when he was taken into custody and was alleged to be number four in command of the LRA. Ongwen's trial was historic because it was the first case involving crimes committed by the LRA at the ICC, who issued warrants for five LRA commanders in 2005. Three of the commanders were killed, Ongwen was taken into custody in the Central African Republic in 2015, and Joseph Kony remains at large.

Ongwen's case is contentious because it raises queries about the ethics of prosecuting a former child soldier. In December 2016, Ongwen told the court that he was "one of the people against whom the LRA committed atrocities," and therefore he should not be held accountable for their crimes. Which begs the question, can former child soldiers be held responsible for their acts despite being abducted and subjugated to violence and indoctrination from such a young age?

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ICC'S RULING

The ICC ruled yes. Jo Becker, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch children's rights division and expert on child soldiers, supported the decision: "I don't think anyone should excuse Ongwen for his acts as an adult. But there's no doubt that the violence he went through as a child in the LRA was a big part of the person he became ".

The conviction is a landmark moment in achieving justice for victims of the LRA, but the question of child soldiers will continue to be an issue for post-conflict reconstruction in Uganda. Abducted children often face challenges reintegrating into their communities due to a lack of trust following the violence that they have perpetrated. This can perpetuate conflict as the children fall back on the violence in which they have been entrenched following rejection from their families. The conviction of Dominic Ongwen demonstrates the value of the legal route for achieving justice for atrocities committed but, when the victims are also the perpetrators, the courts alone cannot create sustainable peace.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Child Soldiers And Accountability: The Trial Of Dominic Ongwen - Human Rights Pulse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an unprecedented ruling in February 2021 when they convicted a Ugandan child soldier-turned commander of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Dominic Ongwen was convicted on 4 February 2021 of 70 counts of crimes including: murder, rape, sexual slavery, and torture committed during his time as a commander in the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).

# data[].attributes.headline
How to Hold a Former Child Soldier Accountable?

# data[].attributes.subject
How to Hold a Former Child Soldier Accountable?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After a four-year trial, in February the International Criminal Court will deliver its judgment in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander of the brutal rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). He is charged with 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, and torture.
Update: The International Criminal Court found Dominic Ongwen guilty on February 4, 2021, a major step for justice for widespread atrocities committed by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in northern Uganda.
The road to becoming an alleged war criminal started the day Ongwen, then a 10-year-old boy, was kidnapped by LRA fighters as he walked to school. Ongwen was so small, it was reported that other children had to carry him to the LRA's military bases. Using violence and manipulation, his LRA captors forced him to become a child soldier.

Ongwen, believed to be 40 years old and said to be number four in command of the LRA when he was taken into custody, is alleged to be responsible for terrible crimes that were committed. But he is also a victim, and his case raises sticky issues. Namely, should decisions by the ICC, a court designed to hold war criminals to account, reflect a suspect's history as a child abductee who was forced to fight?

For Human Rights Watch, the answer is yes. It is a factor that can be considered for sentencing, but it should not be used to negate responsibility.

"I don't think anyone should excuse Ongwen for his acts as an adult," said Jo Becker, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch's children's rights division and an expert on child soldiers. "But there's no doubt that the violence he went though as a child in the LRA was a big part of the person he became."
The Fate of Child Soldiers
The LRA formed around 1987 in the Acholi region of northern Uganda, and while its original aim was to oust the Ugandan government, which had long ignored the disenfranchised northern part of the country, it ultimately became a power unto itself.

Between 1987 and 2006, tens of thousands of Ugandan civilians were either killed by the LRA or during the LRA's fighting with Uganda's armed forces, and more than 1.9 million people were displaced from their homes. The group abducted at least 25,000 Ugandan children, primarily for use as child soldiers, or to be forced into child marriages with LRA commanders. Uganda's army forced the LRA out of the country in 2006. Since then the group has operated in the Democratic Republic of Congo, what is now South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, and in those countries combined has killed more than 3,180 civilians and abducted more than 8,700 others, according to a crisis tracker map created by Invisible Children, a group dedicated to ending violent conflict in central Africa. Additionally, upwards of 400,000 people in those countries have been displaced by the LRA.

Internationally, the LRA is known for its practice of abducting children. When adults refused to join the LRA, group members decided to kidnap children. Through brutal induction methods and threats of death, the LRA forced them to become fierce, loyal fighters. "Children were easier to intimidate and manipulate," Becker said.

Tens of thousands of children were kidnapped, and some experts believe that 90 percent of LRA members were abducted as children. By 2003, rural families in northern Uganda were so terrified of the LRA taking their children, that parents sent their kids to spend the night in nearby towns and cities, hoping they would be safer. Some 40,000 children, called "night commuters," traveled each night, taking shelter under shops, at bus stations, at churches, wherever they could.

Human Rights Watch and other groups have interviewed many child soldiers who escaped from or were released by the LRA. What the children endured was terrifying. If they tried to escape, they were killed. If they disobeyed, they were killed. If they accidentally lost a gun, ammunition, or dropped someone's pack, they could be killed. The children endured harsh trainings and were told this was necessary to make them into fighters. The LRA forced children to commit terrible crimes, including beating children or adult fighters to death with logs or branches. Afterwards, they would tell the children that, because of what they did, they could never return home again and that their families and communities would shun or even hurt them. On top of the ritualized violence, kidnapped girls were forced to marry LRA commanders, subjected to sexual violence, and forced to bear their children.

One child shared a story Becker never forgot, about being kidnapped with four of his brothers. "The LRA decided it was a security risk to have them stay together, so they tied up two of the younger brothers and made the older ones watch as they were beaten to death. The youngest was just 9." Then, according to the child, an LRA member told them that what they witnessed "would give us strength to fight."

While we don't know exactly what Ongwen experienced after he was kidnapped, without a doubt he witnessed or was forced to take part in horrific violence. It's impossible that a child could live through this without being traumatized, and it could lead to developmental dysfunction.

"I think it's really important to understand what the dynamics really are for children, especially children recruited in such a brutal context," Becker said. "Almost certain death for disobedience. Separated from your family so early. Being brainwashed. Children make choices that they think will help ensure their own survival. They are making the best of a very bad situation."

In other words, in terrible situations children choose what they see as the lesser of two evils - a choice that can lead to following orders, even committing unspeakable crimes, in order to survive.
Vincent Oyet's Story
Vincent Oyet, a member of the Lukodi community of northern Uganda, was kidnapped multiple times by the LRA beginning when he was 15 years old. Each time he either escaped or was freed and managed to get back home.

Today, Oyet works as a teacher. He also serves as the secretary of the Lukodi CORE team, an organization that mobilizes survivors and advocates for assistance, reparations, and justice for crimes committed by the LRA.

Oyet's home, the Lukodi village in Acholi, was the site of one of Ongwen's most infamous alleged massacres in 2004. And Oyet wants the full weight of the ICC's judgment to fall upon Ongwen.

In the months and years leading up the attack, the LRA had terrorized the region, and people from Lukodi and other neighboring areas had fled en masse to a camp for internally displaced people at Lukodi primary school. On the evening of May 19, 2004, Ongwen's troops swarmed the camp, according to a report by the Justice and Reconciliation Project. Survivors recall hearing whistles, gunshots and explosions before everything descended into chaos. The LRA fighters killed indiscriminately, looting whatever food, animals, and property they could find. They shoved families into their homes and set them on fire, burning people alive. Hundreds of homes were torched. Fighters killed the very young and the very old, kidnapping children and women, forcing them to carry looted items. The massacre took place over roughly an hour or two, but because of the burning, the smell of dead bodies and burned food lingered for a month.

At the time of the attack, Oyet was in Gulu, about 17 kilometers from Lukodi, but he returned to the camp the following morning having heard the news. "I saw a number of people who were lying in pools of blood or burned beyond recognition, a number of houses burned down to ash, a number of people beaten by the LRA," he said. To this day, he can barely comprehend how so much death could happen in so little time. It took him between six months and a year to sleep without waking from nightmares, and still, he sometimes dreams of what he saw. "I cannot forget that in my life."

Although Ongwen is implicated in leading raids and abducting people when he was younger than 18, he was older than 18 - a legal adult under international law - when he allegedly led this attack. "Lots of kids were kidnapped. I was also kidnapped. If other people who were kidnapped [managed to] escape, why was it difficult for him to escape as well? He killed people on his own [volition] to please his superiors and get promotions," Oyet says.

"As we continue waiting for the court [to make its decision] there are some victims who continue passing away without seeing justice because of the long time that the ICC processes take. Victims are hoping to get justice or reparations in the event the court rules in their favor. They are expecting reparations."
Evelyn Amony's Story
The people of northern Uganda are divided when it comes to their wishes for Ongwen's possible ICC conviction and sentencing. Some, like Oyet, want him severely punished. Others want the court to show mercy because Ongwen was kidnapped and manipulated by his captors to do their bidding.

Evelyn Amony, another LRA victim, hopes the court will show Ongwen mercy. Amony was kidnapped by the LRA at age 12, then forced to "marry" the LRA's enigmatic leader, Joseph Kony, becoming one of his 27 "wives." During the 11 years she spent as an LRA captive, she gave birth to three children, and in 2005, escaped with two of her daughters. Her second-born daughter had gone missing a year earlier.

Like many other children abducted by the LRA, Amony and her kids faced tremendous stigma after her escape. She had grown up in the village of Atiak, which was attacked by the LRA, who killed many of her family members. Some family members resent the fact that her children with Kony are alive and well.

Her experience led her to seek out other women in similar situations and to establish the Women's Advocacy Network, which seeks reparations for women harmed in the war. It also works to locate abducted children, helping them reconcile with their mothers, fathers, and extended families.

Amony also knew Ongwen. When the fighters were forging a river and she almost drowned, Ongwen helped save her. When she was injured and couldn't walk, Ongwen was one of the boys who carried her stretcher.

"To me, I feel that [Ongwen] was abducted as a child and I think it was not proper to take him to ICC because he did not willingly go to the bush but was taken forcibly," she said over email.

"Some of the victims are celebrating his trial, and it's good, as they feel justice is being served," she wrote. "Others feel that the trial is not going to change their lives and [that the] focus should be on repairing their lives, not prosecuting Dominic, because prosecution is not going to change their current condition of poverty."
The Trial
Ongwen's trial is historic. "To date, this is the only case involving crimes by an LRA leader at the ICC, and pretty much anywhere in the world," said Elise Keppler, associate director of Human Rights Watch's international justice division.

In 2005 the ICC issued warrants for five LRA commanders, but three were killed, and Kony remains at large. Ongwen was received into custody in the Central African Republic and handed over to the court in 2015.

ICC trials are unique because victims can participate separate from being witnesses, by sharing their views and concerns. The court recognizes that one facet of justice is giving victims a voice. Ongwen's trial has more than 4,000 victims participating, including Vincent Oyet, as his school was destroyed in the massacre.

Both Oyet and Amony spoke of the poverty the fighting left in its wake. "Traditionally as Acholi we didn't keep money in the bank, but we kept animals as our wealth," Oyet said. "During the insurgency, our animals and the crops that we survived on were looted by the LRA."

"People lost 20 years of their lives and income. They lost property and their bread winners," said Oryem Nyeko, Human Rights Watch's Uganda and Tanzania researcher. "The region is poorer and less developed than it would have been had there been no war. The north has the lowest literacy levels and highest unemployment levels, which is directly correlated to the war and the fact that its legacy has not been fully addressed."

Here's another issue. The cases the ICC can bring involving LRA crimes are limited, as the court does not prosecute crimes committed before its treaty came into force in 2002. This means that 15 years of the LRA's 20-year terror spree in Uganda are not under its jurisdiction. The investigation is also focused on the northern Uganda conflict, as opposed to the LRA's more recent crimes elsewhere in the region.

Another challenge is the lack of accountability for abuses committed by the Ugandan army while it fought the LRA, including killings and torture. This is particularly poignant for Uganda's northerners, who feltvictimized and misunderstood by the soldiers. It didn't help that the army came from a part of Uganda that had long repressed the north. The ICC prosecutor has yet to fully answer whether her office will pursue cases against members of the army and if not, why not.

While Ongwen's trial won't lift anyone out of poverty, the court could award victims reparations in the form of collective community support or even modest individual payments. Many people there expect the court to reward victims with something, even if it won't come close to making up for what they lost.

Today the LRA is a shadow of what it was in the past. It's weak and splintered, although it is still operating - and sometimes still kidnapping children - in South Sudan, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic. Kony remains at liberty in a remote area on the border of South Sudan and Sudan.

It's hoped that the Ongwen case will act as a salve for many LRA victims, to have an international court acknowledge the crimes and what they suffered. Many victims have bravely shared their stories with the court, creating a sea of evidence. Hopefully it will wake up more leaders of armed groups to the possible reach of justice, and maybe even deter future crimes.

But if Ongwen is convicted, a sentence that also acknowledges his history as a child soldier and a victim, someone who was torn from his family as a child, could be a balm to many families as well - the families whose own children were stolen from them - as well as for former child soldiers who were forced to fight and who are afraid to go home.

It can be challenging for abducted children who became child soldiers to reintegrate into communities that may no longer trust their loyalties, a situation Evelyn Amony's organization is also working to ease. What they need is support reintegrating, going back to school, and finding jobs.

"This trial cannot solve the myriad problems created by the LRA conflict, including its devastating impact on children," Keppler said. "But fair trials, including appropriate punishments for those convicted, can help build greater respect for rule of law and hopefully contribute to a brighter future - in Uganda and beyond."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How to Hold a Former Child Soldier Accountable?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After a four-year trial, in February the International Criminal Court will deliver its judgment in the case of Dominic Ongwen, a senior commander of the brutal rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). He is charged with 70 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, sexual slavery, and torture.

# data[].attributes.headline
Children Without a Childhood - Website Doesn't work. Use this for your work cited page:

# data[].attributes.subject
Children Without a Childhood - Website Doesn't work. Use this for your work cited page:

# data[].attributes.body
Newsela. “In a war, children without a childhood.” Newsela, 21 05 2014, p. 3.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ishmael Beah was born in Sierra Leone, West Africa. He is a New York Times best-selling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier and Radiance of Tomorrow: A Novel. In this passage, Ishmael Beah describes transitioning to life in America after his experiences as a child soldier.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New York City, 1998

My high school friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.

"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?"

"Because there is a war."

"Did you witness some of the fighting?"

"Everyone in the country did."

"You mean you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?"

"Yes, all the time."

I smile a little.

"You should tell us about it sometime."

"Yes, sometime."

This is how wars are fought now: by children, traumatized, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become the soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What does war look like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But it is rare to find a first-person account from someone who endured this hell and survived.

In A LONG WAY GONE: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Beah, now twenty-six years old, tells a powerfully gripping story: At the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he'd been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts. At sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, he learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and, finally, to heal.

This is an extraordinary and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Long Way Gone: memoirs of a boy soldier by Ishmael Beah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
New York City, 1998 My high school friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life. "Why did you leave Sierra Leone?" "Because there is a war." "Did you witness some of the fighting?" "Everyone in the country did."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Neglected communities in places like central Africa live with the daily threat of violence from multiple armed groups. Without basic government support or communications systems, they are left completely unprotected with no way to call for help.

People aren't the only targets. In remote and economically poor places like these, communities and criminals alike depend on the natural environment for their survival. Armed groups like the LRA terrorize communities while funding their crimes through illegal wildlife poaching and trafficking. These cycles of violence and exploitation threaten the very existence of entire communities and their ecosystems.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Neglected communities in places like central Africa live with the daily threat of violence from multiple armed groups. Without basic government support or communications systems, they are left completely unprotected with no way to call for help. People aren't the only targets.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
South Sudan: Warring Parties Break Promises on Child Soldiers

# data[].attributes.headline
Some Child Soldiers Get Rehabilitation, Others Get Prison

# data[].attributes.subject
Some Child Soldiers Get Rehabilitation, Others Get Prison

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
He was just a 14-year-old schoolboy when the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) took over his city, Mosul, in northern Iraq. His school soon shut down. With little else to do, he said, he joined ISIS to make money. He said he received twenty days of training, and then worked as a cook, making about $50 a month. "I never wanted to fight," he said. "That's why I stayed a cook."

Kurdish security forces in northern Iraq captured him during a military offensive in the fall of 2016, and detained and interrogated him. Last year, a Kurdish court convicted him of terrorism. When a colleague and I met him in November in a reformatory in Erbil, he had been in prison for more than two years.

With the rise of violent extremist groups like ISIS, al Qaeda, al-Shabab, and Boko Haram, many countries have adopted much more aggressive counterterrorism measures, including a marked increase in the detention and prosecution of children. The United Nations has documented a five-fold increase in the number of children detained in the context of armed conflict since 2012.

These practices have created an unfair and dangerous double standard: in "traditional" armed conflicts, child soldiers are seen primarily as victims who need rehabilitation assistance and help reintegrating into society. But in a conflict with a so-called terrorist group, children are prosecuted as criminals and sentenced to prison as terrorists.

If the boy from Mosul had been part of an armed group in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or any number of other conflict countries around the world, he might be back in school or getting vocational training. In the past twenty years, tens of thousands of former child soldiers have benefited from rehabilitation programs designed to help them rejoin society. These programs recognize that recruiting children for armed conflict is a violation of international law and that the primary violators of the law are the adult recruiters, not the children.

When it comes to ISIS, however, children who have been involved with the group in any capacity are increasingly being treated as criminals and charged with terrorism. The situation is particularly dire in Iraq, where the government of Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) are currently detaining an estimated 1,500 children for alleged ISIS involvement. A child may be arrested simply because someone from their village reported them-rightly or wrongly-as connected to ISIS. One father told us about the arrest of his 14-year old son: "People said they had seen him with ISIS. He was hanging out with them because they were his friends and his cousins, that's it."

Once a child is arrested, security forces can torture him to coerce confessions. Late last year, a colleague and I interviewed twenty-nine boys who had been detained as ISIS suspects in Iraqi Kurdistan. Nineteen described abuse that amounts to torture. They said that interrogators beat them with plastic pipes, electric cables, or rods, sometimes for hours. Some said they were given electric shocks or tied into painful positions.

Their interrogators didn't seem to care whether they were really part of ISIS. One 17-year-old told me his interrogators said, "You need to say you were with ISIS. Even if you weren't, you need to say it." All but one of the boys we interviewed said they eventually confessed to ISIS association, believing they had no other choice. One 16-year-old boy told us, "My confession says that I joined ISIS for sixteen days, but actually, I didn't join at all. I said sixteen days to stop the torture."

Over the past twenty years, I've interviewed scores of child soldiers from Uganda, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Myanmar, and other conflicts. Some were recruited by force, while others joined armed groups or forces to earn money, gain status, to escape family problems, or because they were influenced by friends or relatives. The children I interviewed in Iraq who admitted joining ISIS were no different. Several said they joined ISIS to make money or because their friends had joined. One said he joined "to feel brave and powerful." Multi-country research by United Nations University has found that contrary to conventional wisdom, ideology is rarely the primary force motivating children's association with violent extremist groups.

Many of the children I interviewed in Iraq who joined ISIS now express regret. "The only reason we joined is because we were young and didn't think," said a 17-year old boy. "We were just kids." Most said that once they are released from prison, their only desire was to reunite with their families, and go back to school or get jobs.

There's no doubt that some children have committed terrible crimes during armed conflict. If so, they can be prosecuted under international law, taking their age into account and adhering to international standards. But prosecuting children for any affiliation with ISIS is not justice, and will not help Iraq rebuild its society. On the contrary, it's likely to only marginalize these children further, and even their families, and foster future grievances.

At the end of the brutal civil war in Sierra Leone, a special court was established to prosecute those most responsible for war crimes during the conflict. The court's prosecutor, David Crane, announced that as a matter of principle, he would not prosecute children. "I want to prosecute the people who forced thousands of children to commit unspeakable crimes," he explained.

UNICEF and child-focused agencies such as Save the Children or War Child have years of experience helping children associated with armed groups get back into school and get the rehabilitation help they need. Iraqi and KRG authorities should work with such agencies to set up rehabilitation programs that can help children affiliated with ISIS to reintegrate back into society.

Whether a child soldier gets sent to prison or rehabilitation should not be based on labels or a matter of chance. The recruitment of children by armed groups is always illegal. Prosecutions should focus on the recruiters, not the children. What the children need is help rebuilding their lives.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Some Child Soldiers Get Rehabilitation, Others Get Prison

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
He was just a 14-year-old schoolboy when the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) took over his city, Mosul, in northern Iraq. His school soon shut down. With little else to do, he said, he joined ISIS to make money.

# data[].attributes.headline
Ishmael Beah Interview #1 - Watched in class on 12/5

# data[].attributes.subject
Ishmael Beah Interview #1 - Watched in class on 12/5

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As I sat watching the sentencing hearing at Guantanamo Bay of Omar Khadr, a former child soldier, I wondered how his being detained here for eight years without trial could actually be used against him. But that was the thrust of the testimony on Tuesday before the military commission of the prosecution's expert witness on Khadr's future dangerousness. There Khadr sat, silently, hair and beard trimmed, in a dark suit, while over and over again, Dr. Michael Welner, a board certified forensic psychiatrist and creator of the "depravity scale," talked about how Khadr had been "marinating" in the radical jihadi views of elder statesmen of terrorist groups while at Guantanamo.

Khadr, only 15 at the time of his apprehension but 24 now, has pleaded guilty in a military commission to five charges, including murder in violation of the laws of war for the killing of US Army Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. Speer was fatally wounded on July 27, 2002, after U.S. forces entered a compound in Afghanistan where Khadr and others were located. After a firefight ensued, prosecutors alleged Khadr threw a grenade that killed Speer and wounded others.

Khadr was also seriously wounded in the firefight, half-blinded in one eye and with two bullet wounds to his chest. In bringing the murder in violation of the laws of war charge before a military commission, the U.S. government is saying that the killing of a combatant openly on the battlefield is a war crime when committed by an irregular combatant. It's a novel legal argument: Merely engaging in battle as an insurgent rather than as a member of a regular army has never made such battlefield conduct a war crime. And Khadr's plea deal makes the U.S. the first Western nation since World War II to convict someone for acts committed as a child in a war crimes tribunal.

But none of this was heard by the military jury on Tuesday. Nor is there reason to believe it will be taken into account when the jury decides sentencing. While the public knows that Khadr, a Canadian national, has entered into a plea agreement, the military jury charged with sentencing has not been informed of the deal-eight years, one in Guantanamo followed by another seven in Canada. Instead, following courts-martial practice, they only know that Khadr has pleaded guilty and will issue a sentence after hearing testimony from both prosecution and defense witnesses. If by chance they issue a shorter sentence, Khadr gets the benefit. But if they issue a longer one, the terms of the plea agreement will govern.

It is hard to imagine the jury will issue a shorter sentence after seeing the direction the prosecution's case is taking. Dr. Welner appears to be their star witness, although he might be eclipsed by the widow of Sgt. Speer. Ms. Speer wept openly in court while the prosecution read a statement about how the grenade thrown during the firefight caused Speer mortal brain damage. She will testify later this week, as will former Army Special Forces Sgt. Layne Morris, who was blinded in one eye during the same firefight.

But on Tuesday, the focus of the testimony was on Khadr's remorse, or lack thereof. Two former interrogators testified that Khadr had bragged about killing a U.S. soldier and that he claimed the day he planted land mines to kill U.S. and coalition forces was the happiest day of his life. But neither had seen him since they last interrogated him in 2002, when he was 16 years old and still medicated from surgery for his near fatal injuries.

Former interrogators and Dr. Welner testified that when Khadr was angry at his guards, he would recall how he had killed a U.S. soldier and that would make him happy. The implication, of course, was that Khadr was, in the words of one interrogator, "cold and callous."

Unstated was why Khadr might be so angry at US soldiers as to relish in the death of one of them. The jury will never hear testimony about how Khadr was strung up like a big over the air vent to his cell in Bagram, or that interrogators told him a fictional story of a young man sent to an American prison who was gang-raped and died of related injuries-implying that Khadr might face a similar fate if he failed to cooperate.

They will never see the video of his interrogation by Canadian intelligence agents where he is lying on the floor crying for his mother. Nor will the prosecution present evidence of international law that required Khadr to be treated differently upon capture from other detainees because of his age.

Dr. Welner stated his conclusion at the outset: Omar Khadr is "highly dangerous." But the basis for his conclusion was far scarier than any threat of recidivism. He relied on Khadr's devoutness, the fact that while in Guantanamo he memorized the Koran (a respected feat in Islam) and has led prayer in his cell block. These factors apparently suggest that Khadr is a radical jihadi.

He acknowledged that Khadr has never been violent at Guantanamo and that the camp where he is housed is reserved for the most "compliant" detainees. But at the same time he insinuated that Khadr's fluency in several languages and ability to communicate with many different people was somehow negative. He seemed dismayed Khadr had not become more "Westernized" and fraternized more with his guards.

Further supposedly damning evidence was Khadr's charm. This, Dr. Welner suggested, would surely make Khadr an influential al Qaeda leader. The No. 1 reason that Khadr was dangerous: his father. A senior ranking al Qaeda leader now dead, Khadr's father took him to visit al Qaeda leaders when he was 10 and to a military training camp when he was 15. The fact that this constituted use and abuse by Khadr's father did not seem to be important. Dr. Welner apparently spent 500 to 600 hours working on Khadr's case for that conclusion, at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars to U.S. taxpayers.

The plea bargain indeed is a hand well played by the prosecution. It has cleansed this case of all its untidy aspects: the abuse allegations, the flouting of international law with respect to the treatment of juveniles, the invention of new war crimes and of an entirely new, untested, and deeply flawed legal process. None will be mentioned in the courtroom. Nor will the pathetic record of Guantanamo in general. Khadr's case is only the fifth to be prosecuted since Guantanamo opened its doors over eight years ago. This, despite the fact that more than 800 prisoners have passed through Guantanamo's gates, the vast majority of them entirely innocent. Of the 174 who remain, roughly half are due to be released. These statistics stand in sharp contrast to that of the tried, true, and more efficient U.S. federal courts, where more than 400 terrorism cases have been prosecuted since 9/11.

Instead, the prosecution parades a theory of dangerousness that has pervaded U.S. detention policy for years: The men in Guantanamo are dangerous, and they are dangerous because they are in Guantanamo.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Child Soldier on Trial at Guantanamo

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As I sat watching the sentencing hearing at Guantanamo Bay of Omar Khadr, a former child soldier, I wondered how his being detained here for eight years without trial could actually be used against him. But that was the thrust of the testimony on Tuesday before the military commission of the prosecution's expert witness on Khadr's future dangerousness.

# data[].attributes.headline
Iraq: New documentary highlights plight of Yezidi child soldiers who survived Islamic State

# data[].attributes.subject
Iraq: New documentary highlights plight of Yezidi child soldiers who survived Islamic State

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Iraq: New documentary highlights plight of Yezidi child soldiers who survived Islamic State

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The 12-minute film, Captives on the Frontlines: Yezidi former child soldiers who survived ISIS, explores the friendship between Vian and Barzan, two young men who were abducted as boys by Islamic State in 2014, indoctrinated into the armed group, and forced to fight. Both escaped and are now living…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For more than two decades, the Taliban have put children on the front lines of Afghanistan's armed conflicts. They have used children as fighters, to plant and detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and as suicide bombers. Thousands of children may remain in their ranks today.

The Taliban's current efforts to establish a government in Afghanistan provide an opportunity for the international community to push for an end to child recruitment, and for the release of children from Taliban forces.

Taliban commanders long have relied on madrasas, or Islamic religious schools, to train and provide children as soldiers. Boys as young as 6 were indoctrinated, and by age 13, often had learned to use firearms. Children between 13 and 17 were often used to fight. Other parties to the conflict, including the U.S.-backed Afghan government and pro-government forces, reportedly also recruited and used children.

The Taliban used children to carry out suicide and other dangerous attacks, often recruiting them through deception, with promises of money or other incentives, and threats. One 15-year-old boy told United Nations investigators that a Taliban commander ordered him to detonate explosives against Afghan police, promising him that if he carried out the mission, he would go to paradise and receive "huge rewards." When the boy resisted, the commander threatened to kill the boy and his parents.

Suicide attacks in Afghanistan were rare until 2005, but then were rapidly adopted as a war tactic by the Taliban and other insurgent groups. Since 2014, suicide attacks by Taliban forces have caused approximately 6,000 civilian casualties. Armed groups often use children to carry out such attacks because they are easier to manipulate and may be less likely to arouse suspicion than adults.

The conflict in Afghanistan has been one of the world's deadliest for children - estimates are that approximately 33,000 children were killed or maimed over the past 20 years. The death toll among child soldiers can be particularly high. During a military offensive in Kunduz in 2015, for example, Human Rights Watch spoke with several families whose children, just 14 and 15, were killed in combat only weeks after the Taliban recruited them.

The Taliban have denied that they use children in "jihadic operations" and their code of conduct states that "boys without beards" are not allowed in military centers. Nevertheless, the U.N. has verified hundreds of individual cases in which the Taliban have recruited and used children in recent years, including a sharp spike in 2020, and warned that the true figures are likely much higher.

Crucially, the Taliban have demonstrated some sensitivity to accusations of child recruitment. In 2019, for example, the Taliban's Commission for the Prevention of Civilian Casualties and Complaints secured the release of 14 boys from their ranks following community complaints.

The U.S.-backed former Afghan government and pro-government forces also bear responsibility for recruiting and using children to fight. In addition, the former government's harsh treatment of children suspected of Taliban involvement most likely fueled anti-government resentment. Instead of providing children with rehabilitation assistance, as international law requires, security forces systematically detained and tortured hundreds of children - some as young as 10 - for suspected association with armed groups. U.N. investigations found that nearly 44 percent of children detained for conflict-related charges reported torture - a higher rate than for adult detainees. We do not know what has happened to these children.

During this time of transition, the international community should take several steps to help end the use of child soldiers in Afghanistan.

First, as the Taliban seek to establish themselves as the government, the U.N., donors and outside governments should raise the issue of child soldiers. Ending their recruitment and releasing children from their ranks could be a confidence-building measure and would demonstrate the Taliban's willingness to comply with international norms.

Second, the U.N. Security Council should continue to support robust United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) monitoring of violations against children, including recruiting and using children in the Taliban ranks. For years, U.N. personnel have investigated and verified individual cases of child recruitment, providing important and incontrovertible evidence for advocacy with relevant authorities.

Third, individual commanders should be held accountable. The use of children under 18 in hostilities violates international law, and recruiting or using children under 15 is a war crime. The office of the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has signaled its intention to investigate the recruitment and use of children in Afghanistan and should be supported. Prosecutions of individual commanders can send a strong signal - in Afghanistan and elsewhere - that child recruitment is unacceptable and carries significant consequences.

The Taliban's record of human rights abuses is considerable, and there are many challenges ahead. But ending the exploitation of children on the battlefield should be a key condition in the anticipated negotiations between the Taliban and the international community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
This is our opportunity to end the Taliban's use of child soldiers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For more than two decades, the Taliban have put children on the front lines of Afghanistan's armed conflicts. They have used children as fighters, to plant and detonate improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and as suicide bombers. Thousands of children may remain in their ranks today.

# data[].attributes.headline
Child Soldiers:  One of the worst abuses of child labour

# data[].attributes.subject
Child Soldiers:  One of the worst abuses of child labour

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Last week the United States State Department named more countries than ever before - 14 - in its latest annual list of governments responsible for the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Cameroon, Libya, and Nigeria were added this year, joining repeat offenders such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Non-state armed groups are responsible for most child recruitment around the world, but US law - the Child Soldiers Prevention Act - aims to hold governments accountable for their forces' recruitment or use of children, or support for militias or paramilitaries that recruit or use children. Those on the list are ineligible for key US military assistance programs, unless they receive a waiver from the White House.

Despite the growth of this year's list, the report documented some encouraging developments. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, there have been no verified cases of child recruitment by national armed forces for five years, age verification efforts prevented the recruitment of over 140 children last year, and investigations and prosecutions of child recruiters have increased. Government forces, however, continued to collaborate with proxy militias that use children in armed conflict.

In Sudan, the new government has issued command orders against child recruitment, trained more than 5,000 military personnel, and, after reports of child recruitment in May 2019, allowed United Nations verification visits to ensure children were not present.

But in Afghanistan, government forces continue to recruit children with impunity. The use of children by Syrian government forces is commonplace, with no effort to hold recruiters accountable. Iran continues to force or coerce children to fight with militias in Syria, and funds militias using child soldiers in Iraq and Yemen.

The Child Soldiers Prevention Act offers little leverage to influence child soldier use in countries like Syria or Iran, where the US provides no military assistance. And presidents have routinely used their waiver authority to continue military aid to countries still using child soldiers. Last year, for example, waivers allowed Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mali, and Somalia to receive $17 million in military training and assistance.

The State Department should use its diplomatic influence to press all countries on the list to end their involvement in child soldiering. The White House will not make its waiver decisions until September, but it should send a clear message: if you want US military aid, you can't use children as soldiers.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Record Number of Countries on US Child Soldier Blacklist

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Last week the United States State Department named more countries than ever before - 14 - in its latest annual list of governments responsible for the recruitment and use of children as soldiers. Cameroon, Libya, and Nigeria were added this year, joining repeat offenders such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(Nairobi) - African governments across the continent should accelerate efforts and provide adequate funding to ensure that all children can enjoy their right to an education, Human Rights Watch said today to mark the African Union's Day of the African Child.

Despite important progress over the past decades to ensure wide ratification and implementation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, many African children are denied their fundamental right to education. This includes tens of thousands of girls who face discriminatory barriers due to pregnancy, parenthood, or child marriage. Children in at least 18 African countries are affected by attacks against education and the military use of their schools.

"Children across Africa face many interconnected abuses and barriers every day to their right to an education," said Carine Kaneza Nantulya, Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "Millions of children have been excluded or have fallen behind on their learning during the pandemic, and the economic impact has forced many to take on often hazardous and gruelling work, forcing them to drop out of school."

The 2021 African Union theme focuses on accelerating implementation of its Agenda 2040, which outlines the AU's commitments to secure progress for children and young people. Ensuring the right to free, quality, and inclusive education, and reducing inequality in access to quality education is key to carrying out this agenda.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, sub-Saharan Africa had the world's highest out-of-school rates and the highest rates of exclusion. Thirty-two million primary-school-age children and 28 million adolescents of secondary-school age were out of school. Pandemic-related school closures, and the lack of access to remote offline or online learning, have exacerbated previously existing inequalities.

Millions of children already faced financial, social, and discriminatory barriers and were at high risk of being excluded from a quality education - especially girls, children with disabilities, children from low-income households, and those living in areas affected by armed conflict. The increased reliance on private schools or unlawfully levied school fees and other indirect costs in public schools have long been a barrier for many children, including in countries that theoretically guarantee universal free primary and secondary education.

The pandemic has further exacerbated Africa's socioeconomic inequalities and exposed existing gaps in education, health, and social protection systems, with significant impact on children's lives. Nationwide school closures also contributed to an increase in child labor. Many children had no access to remote learning.

In countries including Uganda and Ghana, where cash assistance programs for families during the pandemic have been insufficient, many children have been forced into exploitative and hazardous child labor to support their families. In many cases, children had already dropped out of school before the pandemic because they could not afford to pay school fees, or were working grueling and long hours not only to support their families, but to earn money so they could return to school.

New estimates from the International Labour Organization and UNICEF found that in Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of children in child labor grew by 16.6 million between 2016 and 2020, driving the first increase in global rates in 20 years.

The African continent has the world's highest adolescent pregnancy rates, and teenage pregnancies increased during lockdowns in various countries. Across Africa, tens of thousands of students are barred from school because they became pregnant or are parents. Many countries do not have policies for re-entry after giving birth or to manage adolescent pregnancy in schools.

Governments that have made strong commitments in recent years to ensure that pregnant girls and mothers can attend school should swiftly put the promise into action. They should follow the examples of Sierra Leone, Uganda, and São Tomé e Principe, which recently removed bans or amended policies to ensure that pregnant students and parents can resume formal education in public schools.

African governments should urgently adopt plans to redress the right to education for millions of students who are at risk of not returning to school once schools reopen for in-person teaching, as well as those who aged out of compulsory education during the pandemic. They should also ensure that primary and secondary education are fully free, guarantee quality, inclusive education to children with disabilities, strengthen public education systems, and ensure adequate investment and resources for education.

The African Union should also press governments to urgently adopt laws and policies that encourage girls to stay in school, and stop banning pregnant girls from continuing with their education and succeeding academically, Human Rights Watch said.

In response to the increase in poverty during the Covid-19 pandemic, governments should provide cash allowances to families who need them. Governments should ensure that schools do not charge any fees or expect family contributions and follow up with children most at-risk of dropping out to ensure that they return to school.

All African Union countries should endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, an intergovernmental commitment to strengthen the prevention of, and response to, attacks on students, teachers, schools, and universities during wartime. Although 30 African countries have endorsed the declaration - and have been leaders in implementing its commitments over the past year, children, teachers and schools are under attack, including in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.

The ongoing fighting in Ethiopia's Tigray region is depriving many children of an education, with all parties to the conflict using schools as military bases, and soldiers damaging schools, destroying classrooms, and taking away learning equipment, Human Rights Watch found. In Nigeria, schools and schoolchildren are the target of high-profile attacks and abductions by armed groups, including insurgency groups like Boko Haram.

The African Union should continue its call on member states to ensure that children are safe from attacks against education and restrict the use of schools for military purposes, Human Rights Watch said.

"To achieve the AU's Agenda 2040, the African Union should ensure that all African children have access to a good quality education, and that they are safe from violence, exploitation, or discrimination in any context," Kaneza Nantulya said. "African governments should ensure that children are front and center in their pandemic recovery plans, prioritizing education, and urgently tackling longstanding problems in public education systems caused by the absence of legal frameworks, and inadequate policies and resources."

Further information
Human Rights Watch research in African countries includes reports on barriers to primary and secondary education; privatization of education in Uganda; child marriage in Malawi, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe; school-related sexual and gender-based violence in Senegal; corporal punishment in Tanzania; discrimination against children with disabilities in South Africa and children with albinism in Tanzania and Mozambique; discrimination against pregnant students and adolescent mothers; child labor in Tanzania, Ghana, and Uganda; the forced begging and exploitation of children by Quranic teachers in Senegal; the impact of lead contamination in Zambia; child soldiers and children accused of being part of terrorist groups in Nigeria; attacks on education and military occupation of schools; and forced military training of secondary school students in Eritrea, among others.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Africa: Prioritize Education to Safeguard Children's Rights

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(Nairobi) - African governments across the continent should accelerate efforts and provide adequate funding to ensure that all children can enjoy their right to an education, Human Rights Watch said today to mark the African Union's Day of the African Child.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
US Stops Funding Some Militaries Using Child Soldiers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Biden administration is finally putting firmer pressure on governments using child soldiers. On October 3, it announced that a majority of the 12 governments implicated in using child soldiers would be ineligible for certain categories of military assistance until they addressed the problem.