Child Soldiers and EU/UK/US policies

[KillerMuffin]

http://www.reuters.com/news_article...RNATIONAL-RIGHTS-CHILDREN-SOLDIERS-DC_NEW.XML

By Mike Collett-White

LONDON (Reuters) - Hundreds of thousands of children, some only seven, are fighting in conflicts around the world and Britain is one of the countries that sends troops into battle under the age of 18, a report said Tuesday.

The survey by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers found that over 300,000 children under 18 were fighting for government forces or opposition groups at any one time.

While most child soldiers are aged between 15 and 18, the youngest recorded in the Child Soldiers Global Report is seven.

"Often children are recruited because of their very qualities as children -- they can be cheap, expendable and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience," said the report, which was released in London.

Coalition spokeswoman Judith Arenas told reporters in Johannesburg that since the coalition's first survey on the problem two years ago, the number of countries using children in conflicts had risen to 41 from 31.

Over 300 children died on the battlefield in 1999 and 2000 but Arenas said the figure could be higher as there was no reliable documentation of child casualties.

AFRICA, ASIA WORST AFFECTED

The report found 120,000 minors were participating in conflicts across Africa. Among the worst countries in recent years were Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda.

In Sierra Leone up to 30 percent of state-backed Citizens Defense Forces in some areas are between seven and 14 years old while in Burundi and Rwanda military schools appear to serve as backdoor recruitment centers for tens of thousands of children.

In Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army "abducted children from their schools, communities and homes to camps in Sudan, forcing them to commit atrocities and become sexual slaves."

A recent Reuters report on LRA captives returning home to Uganda said that children, some as young as six, were forced to hack to death fellow child captives who tried to escape.

The coalition survey found widespread child participation in armed conflicts across Asia, naming the worse affected countries as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. Myanmar has one of the highest child soldiers rates in the world, it said.

In Sri Lanka, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had mobilised special battalions of teenage girls and boys, some as young as 10.

The report said that 49 children, including 32 girls between 11 and 15, were among 140 LTTE personnel killed in a battle with security forces in October 1999.

DEVELOPED NATIONS UNDER FIRE

The study also turned its fire on developed countries, including Britain which it said was the only European country routinely to send 17-year-olds into combat.

"Britain routinely insists on deploying troops before the age of 18," Arenas said.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defense, which is struggling to recruit and retain personnel, said British forces did their utmost to avoid sending under-18 troops into battle, although it happened in the Falklands and Gulf conflicts.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was pinning its hopes to help curb the exploitation of the young in conflicts on the United Nations' Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The Optional Protocol seeks to raise to 18 from 15 years the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities and the compulsory recruitment into armed groups, laying the basis for a global ban on the use of child soldiers.

*****

What's to be done? What sorts of policies can industrialized nations form that will enforce the a minimum combatant age? Is it necessary? Should we interdict into countries where the sovereignty is not our own? Is this our responsibility? How can it be stopped?

 

[unusuallyconfused]

I just don't know, I say intervene. technology has allowed us to know of the atrocities, its just I never imagined us a police force. This in my opinion would be a UN responsibility.

 

[R Nitelight]

Give them jobs in Nike factories?

 

[Closet Desire]

good point...

America's hunger for consumer items has probably caused more misery, injury, and death for children than wars (manufacturing in third world countries). I'm not saying it to lessen the importance of children being shipped off to war, only to suggest that America shouldn't be so quick hop on the moral hobby horse.

As for the lower age in the UK. Agree or not, many sixteen year olds leave school because unless you are destined for university this is where you get off and either get a job or join the military. The English do not consider you to be a child until you are 21 (like Bush's daughters). Consensual sex at 16, drink at 18, work for a living at 16. The values are a bit different.

Younger than that I would have a real problem with.

 

[Mensa]

Re: good point...

The English do not consider you to be a child until you are 21 (like Bush's daughters).

[/B]

This explains a lot about the English. Most places, it's the other way round!

 

[Ally C]

What's to be done? What sorts of policies can industrialized nations form that will enforce the a minimum combatant age? Is it necessary? Should we interdict into countries where the sovereignty is not our own? Is this our responsibility? How can it be stopped?

Tricky questions for the most part. If soldiers are sent in from 'outside' and are shot at by child soldiers, then it's a fair probability that they'll be shot back at. Stalemate. Mind you, I'm not too sure if this scenario has ever taken place. As it is, whoever tries to police the world has their work cut out.

As for 17 year old soldiers, to be blunt: what do they think those guns, bayonets, grenades, first aid training and body bags are for? No amount of preparation can ready anyone for the 'real thing', but I'd like to think that those empowered with the task of recruiting and training the armed forces do what they can (given the nature of the 'job') to ensure that those enlisted know what they are letting themselves in for - to a reasonable extent. The best we can hope for is that those joining, regardless of a lack of other career / educational opportunities, do so without any duress.

It tends to be the 'young' who are sent into battle anyway, but I hadn't given much thought to the age limit before this thread. I wouldn't want to go to war at the age of 17. Most 17 year old soldiers probably don't either - in fact most soldiers probably don't for that matter. The fact that there are some willing to enter the armed forces at such a tender age with the risk of armed combat could possibly offer some comfort for the rest of us, if it weren't for the fact that much of the military policing which currently goes on today doesn't necessarily carry with it a mass public consensus (or knowledge even).

 

[CW]

What's to be done? What sorts of policies can industrialized nations form that will enforce the a minimum combatant age? Is it necessary?

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to eliminate this condition. Do you seriously think that just because some world power says " no-no, no soliders under 21 allowed" that any of these nations/factions will do more than snicker? Hell, we can't even manage to feed the starving youth in Africa with any semblance of cooperation.

It may well be deemed apporiate by our standards not to place children in harm's way. Our standards for this, as well as loads more things, are just not universally accepted though.

Where would enforcement come from, assuming that there was a treaty or pact to limit children in battle? The UN? There's a major belly laugh.

I'm afraid that this will continue to be one of the sick things that humanity does.

The youth will forever pay for the stupidity of adults.

 

[Closet Desire]

Most places?

Don't get out much do you? Other European nations place even more liberal limits on the activities of youth than the English including drink and sex.

I might also point out that I joined the US Navy when I was 17 and, as far as I know, you can still do this.

It's sort of a moot point though. I know that at those younger ages of say 18-22 it is a lot easier to instruct warriors to do their job without moral restraint. If I had been thirty I might have asked a lot more questions and reconsidered what I was doing on behalf of armchair warriors.

Hmmmm...

 

[Andra_Jenny]

Yeah,
Ditto!

I was in the Marines at 17. What a hoot. A minimum combat age? How about 65? Talk about the liberalization of the world!


CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! ALL COMBATANTS WILL NOW TAKE THEIR MANDETORY MILITRARY UNION BREAK FOR THE NEXT @) MINUTES!

SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM~!

 

[CW]

Yeah,
Ditto!

I was in the Marines at 17. What a hoot. A minimum combat age? How about 65? Talk about the liberalization of the world!


CEASE FIRE! CEASE FIRE! ALL COMBATANTS WILL NOW TAKE THEIR MANDETORY MILITRARY UNION BREAK FOR THE NEXT @) MINUTES!

SMOKE 'EM IF YOU GOT 'EM~!

NO, NO,,,, no smoking allowed any more. You can do your drug of choice, except for tabacco, though.

 

[Andra_Jenny]

LET 'EM SMOKE THOSE CANDY-ASS BERETS!

Do they make them in child's sizes at the factory in China? Children making hats for children going to war?

 

[CW]

LET 'EM SMOKE THOSE CANDY-ASS BERETS!



lol



Do they make them in child's sizes at the factory in China?

I would think so,,, after all there are children making children,,, and children making clothes,,, and children dealing drugs,,, and children killing ( other than in wars ) children,,,

 

[Andra_Jenny]

So it seems we have a real problem with children in the world. How do we get a handle on the unruly buggers? Tell the adults to grow up?

 

[Weird Harold]

Feed the children?

There is absolutely nothing that can be done to eliminate this condition. Do you seriously think that just because some world power says " no-no, no soliders under 21 allowed" that any of these nations/factions will do more than snicker? Hell, we can't even manage to feed the starving youth in Africa with any semblance of cooperation

I think it probably significant that in many of the places where child soldiers are most common, there is also the problem of starving children.

I think many of the children would be less inclined to be soldiers is someone other than the army fed them.

Putting them to work in "Nike factories" would help too -- any economic improvements could reduce many of the causes of conflicts that involve child soldiers.

No one solution will work for all circumstances that create child soldiers. It may be that conquest of those who kidnap children to make soldiers of them is the only way to solve some situations. At least the surviving child soldiers could be rehabilitated and reconditioned after the battle.

I'd much rather see children given other options for survival by finding a way to make soldiering less attractive to them and the commanders that use them.

 

[Texan]

Re: Feed the children?

I think it probably significant that in many of the places where child soldiers are most common, there is also the problem of starving children.

I think many of the children would be less inclined to be soldiers is someone other than the army fed them.

Putting them to work in "Nike factories" would help too -- any economic improvements could reduce many of the causes of conflicts that involve child soldiers.

Excellent points WH.

I have been to many places in this world where kids would love to have a job in a Nike factory. It would mean that the whole family got to eat.

What's so magical about the age of 18? Does a boy suddenly become a man on his 18th birthday? When a nation (or faction) is at war for survival, every person (man, woman and child) becomes an asset to be used for the survival of the whole. Is this good, or right, ...?..... Hell no! But it's the reality that caused children to fight in the American Revolution, and virtually every other, existence threatening, conflict of every nation's history.

 

[lavender]

 

[Weird Harold]

Now, as for the Nike factories, I think they are deplorable. I think child labor is exploitative and is one of the greatest problems in the world. It is something I ardently cruscade against. I have banned Nike products permanently from my household.

Nike, and other multi-national companies that exploit child labor may be despicable by our enlightened first world morality, but given a choice between exploitation and starving, I think most third world children would take exploitation.

I'm not endorsing exploitation BTW, just pointing out the realities faced by those being exploited. I could argue that if your boycott of Nike is successful, you condemn former child employees of multi-national companies to hunger and poverty.

As much as I dislike unions, I think financing union organizers working to organize the child labor would be more effective in changing the situation.

 

[Closet Desire]

Of course...

This started out as a query about child soldiers, but what you say about children in factories is a point well taken...lesser of two evils you might say. Some would argue that the path to industrialisation includes "exploitation" of labour sources like children, slaves, etc. Europe and the US suffered greatly through this effort to ignite the industrial revolution.

Then again, I would also argue that part of the reason for the condition is that America will allow products made under "sweatshop" conditions to be sold in the US and that American consumers who will argue staunchly for their views on human rights, fair wages, safe conditions et al will happily buy them. The US has no trouble stopping the importation of products they don't want in the country such as beef from the UK, RU486, or those little jars of jam from Devon that you get in finer hotels (punishment for "unfair" trading practices) so arguing that it takes place elsewhere is a bit weak.

There is one major difference between our own earlier development and what's happening today. The profit earned from such operations isn't being used to improve the production conditions as it would be in an ambitious, capitalist enterprise (it actually gives capitalists like me a bad name). Because they are owned by companies outside the country, the profits go into other things so no investment in the human "capital" and a status quo for the present standards. There are already signs of unrest in these manufacturing centres which could very well blossom into energetic riots and economic revolutions in the next few years. Better stock up on those sneakers. You could say that much of the apparent prosperity of the US is being built upon workers in conditions that simply would not be allowed to exist in the US.

As someone already said it's rather ironic that the US Army was planning to purchase its new berets from China...for the same reason. Children will work cheaper than adults...even for the US government.

 

[Ally C]

What Closet Desire said ...

... as I was going to say something along those lines as I made my way down this thread.

So 'we' can't provide a quick fix for the problem specified, so that means that providing a few factories for children to work in is a preferable option? I've seldom came across such an inhumane leap of 'logic'. So a few families will have some food, as long as their kids meet production targets, and as long as they work inordinate amounts of hours per day. Wait, regulations could be put in place to monitor conditions and ensure decent working conditions. Yeah, right. If something helpful can be done - even if it's on a very small scale - then concern for conditions etc comes first [with parents given work and not their children]. If it's only about profit, then the whole world and not just developing nations is beyond salvation of any kind.

I don't think the world can be put to rights either. That doesn't mean that we replace present evils with ones of 'our' own making.

 

[Andra_Jenny]

The problem is the United States will not stand firm to these types of conditions and people because the rest of the world is hell-bent on doing business with them, thus starting the fear here, that is we don't get into the market first, or along side or other enlightened compatriots, then we will be relegated to third-world status ourselves.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: What Closet Desire said ...

So 'we' can't provide a quick fix for the problem specified, so that means that providing a few factories for children to work in is a preferable option? I've seldom came across such an inhumane leap of 'logic'.

Just how is a preference for exploitation of child labor over children being brutalized and used as cannon fodder "inhumane"?

Neither is a good choice, but one is infinitely less good than the other.

So a few families will have some food, as long as their kids meet production targets, and as long as they work inordinate amounts of hours per day. Wait, regulations could be put in place to monitor conditions and ensure decent working conditions. Yeah, right. If something helpful can be done - even if it's on a very small scale - then concern for conditions etc comes first [with parents given work and not their children].

A factory doesn't just provide improvements for those who work in the factory, and not all of the money involved leaves the country.

Providing jobs for parents would be preferable, but that doesn't help those children who have no parents!

Subsistence wages (by western standards) and poor working conditions (by western standards) may not be a perfect solution (by western standards), but it's better than no solution at all.

If it's only about profit, then the whole world and not just developing nations is beyond salvation of any kind.

I don't think the world can be put to rights either. That doesn't mean that we replace present evils with ones of 'our' own making.

Because they are owned by companies outside the country, the profits go into other things so no investment in the human "capital" and a status quo for the present standards. There are already signs of unrest in these manufacturing centres which could very well blossom into energetic riots and economic revolutions in the next few years. Better stock up on those sneakers. You could say that much of the apparent prosperity of the US is being built upon workers in conditions that simply would not be allowed to exist in the US.

As I said above, some money has to be put into the local infrastructure for such factories to exist, and the workers' wages go into the local economy as well.

Nike, as one specific example, has already moved production several times as the local economy picked up to the point where the workers started making demands. They do indeed give Capitlaists a bad name. However, they also leave behind some improvements in the infrastructure and a factory which can be turned to some other use.

Factories on the Nike model are NOT my preferred method of helping third world economies. A more responsible and humane form of capatalism would be much preferred. The problem is, that the Nike Corporations of the world are the only ones who are doing much of anything in the way of investment in the third world, and any infusion into those economies is better than none.

Without something other than starvation and poverty to look forward to, there is little chance of getting children out of factional armies in third world countries. Of course, it takes a company willing to risk having factories nationalized and civil unrest from workers or factional violence because the profits to be made are worth the risk.

Sweat-shops are terrible things; unsafe, unsanitary, and filled with underpaid workers -- By Western Standards. By the standards of where they are placed, they are often considered highly paid employment -- sometimes, they are the only employment available.

Sweat-shops are sometimes the "tip of the wedge" for other investments aand/or local industry development. As Nike and others have discovered, the ecomomy improves, and their workers soon have other options, forcing improvements or a move to another job starved country.

It may indeed be "all about profit" for the first companies in a market, but Korea was once such a market, and it is now a major player in Electronics and other industries. (I don't believe that Nike or Reebock still have any factories there, although they both once did.)

 

[Texan]

WH

you sound to me as someone who has traveled a bit. It changes your perspective.

I don't want to put anyone down, but understanding something from a philosophical perspective as a "westerner", and actually seeing how the poor live, are totally different things. It's not like factories in the third world are taking kids out of school and their loving families, to enslave them in sweatshops. If these kids were not working, they would not be in school or playing on swings. There are no schools for the poor in these areas. They would probably be scavenging in the local dump for some rotten food to eat (and believe me, a dump in a third world country doesn't have much to scavenge from).

In North America and Europe, we don't even know what hunger and starvation are. We have NEVER seen it. In the worst slums of L.A. or NYC, the poorest of the poor, have a government check or a Catholic Mission to fall back on. This is NOT the case in much of the world. A job of any kind is wonderful.

These companies don't hire children because they can pay them less than adults. In these areas, they can hire an adult for the same wage. They hire adults when the adult is better suited for the job. They may hire children because they have better manual dexterity or for other job specific reasons.

I have four sons. Three are over 17 years old. I have a great deal of difficulty when I come home from a trip and witness my boys acting like spoiled brats. Once, I verbally lost it when I flew home from Brazil and one of my boys immediately complained that the truck I was "making him drive" (paid for and insured by me) is nearly ten years old.

I am, for the most part, a pragmatist. I like to believe in things based upon principal, then work to apply my principals to my world. It's normal to want to apply our idealistic "western" principals to the rest of the world. But sometimes, we might need a little better understanding of what the "rest of the world" is really like, before we apply our ideals.

 

[Weird Harold]

Re: WH

you sound to me as someone who has traveled a bit. It changes your perspective.

I lived "on the economy" in Thailand in 1972. A week's food budget for two was 35 Baht. (about $1.75) A night on the town, including two good drunks was about 100 Baht ($5.00).

It does indeed change your perspective when you do without Western "necessities" for a while. I really do enjoy the luxuries I have now much more for having lived a much cheaper lifestyle.

I don't want to put anyone down, but understanding something from a philosophical perspective as a "westerner", and actually seeing how the poor live, are totally different things. It's not like factories in the third world are taking kids out of school and their loving families, to enslave them in sweatshops. If these kids were not working, they would not be in school or playing on swings.

I might add, that even the worst of the sweat-shops provide more schooling than kids (or their parents) would receive otherwise.

I really hate defending sweat-shops. Especially companies like Nike, who pay such low wages for shoes they sell for several hundred dollars.

However, as an alternative to the conditions that send schildren into combat, sweat-shops are better than many other alternatives.

 

[Closet Desire]

I'll have to be...

...the first to say that my background in international economics is at bit dated at best. I do watch those industries I'm invested in.

Korea---I will have to point out that Korea built much of its industrial base on support from arch enemy Japan. Whether Japanese policies were any better than Western policies regarding subsistence and working conditions I don't know.

It would seem that the price of modernization is that difficult period when you take more than is ethical from those who work for you. No country seems to have survived it. I do wonder if the way we do it now draws out the transition and makes it last longer. In other words, paying subsistence and making only minimal capital investments would prevent development in an area beyond what the investing manufacturer wants. Sort of like the company towns that used to exist in the American west.

Oh, well...difficult topic and I'm not at my best this morning (head cold...arrrggghhh).

 

[Ally C]

Re: Re: What Closet Desire said ...

Just how is a preference for exploitation of child labor over children being brutalized and used as cannon fodder "inhumane"?

Neither is a good choice, but one is infinitely less good than the other.

How is it "inhumane"? You ask that after you yourself used the words "a preference for exploitation"? The lesser of two evils just doesn't cut it with me.

As for the other points you make, I'm glad that you eventually clarified your position - well some of it at least. In case you or anyone else hadn't noticed: I never said don't invest and improve workplaces. Have you never read about or seen projects created by international charities and aid organisations? I've yet to see one that encourages and creates workplaces for child labour. Strange the way some people value earning money and the economy over health and education when it comes to children. Very strange in fact, and very worrying.