New Ban on Child Soldiers to Take Effect

(New York, November 13, 2001) -- Human Rights Watch today welcomed news
that a new treaty banning the use of children in combat will take effect
early next year. With New Zealand's ratification on November 12, ten
countries have now ratified the treaty, which will enter into force on
February 12, 2002.

"This is a huge advance in the effort to end the use of children as
soldiers," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocacy director for Human
Rights Watch. "A growing consensus that children are not acceptable
tools of war is now backed up by binding international law."

The treaty, which is an optional protocol to the Convention on the
Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict,
prohibits the participation of children under the age of eighteen in
armed conflict, or their forced recruitment or conscription.

An estimated 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are currently
fighting in armed conflicts in approximately 40 countries worldwide.
Countries that are most affected include Angola, Burma, Colombia, the
Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan,
where recent reports indicate recruitment and use of children as
soldiers by both the Taliban and Northern Alliance forces.

"In Colombia, government-backed paramilitaries recruit children as young
as eight years old," said Becker. "In the Democratic Republic of Congo,
unarmed children have been sent ahead of older troops to draw enemy
fire. In Sri Lanka, they have been sent on suicide missions. In northern
Uganda, kids are forced to beat to death others who try to escape. A ban
on this abuse is long overdue."

Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the Coalition to Stop the Use
of Child Soldiers, which was launched in 1998. As part of its campaign
for a global ban on the use of children as soldiers, the coalition has
organized a series of high-profile regional conferences, published
research on recruitment practices in over

180 countries, and built a worldwide network of campaigns and partners
in forty countries. The protocol was adopted by the United Nations
General Assembly on May 25, 2000. To date, eighty-seven countries have
signed the protocol. The ten countries that have ratified the protocol
are Canada, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Andorra, Panama, Iceland, Vietnam,
Holy See, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and New Zealand.

"These ten countries have shown real leadership," said Becker. "We urge
all other governments to follow their example and ratify the protocol as
soon as possible."

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Although the protocol will now go into force in early 2002, we need many
more ratifications to make the ban on the use of child soldiers truly
global!

Please help by contacting your government to encourage it to sign, or,
if it has already done so, ratify the Optional Protocol without
reservations and setting at least eighteen as the minimum age for all
forms of military recruitment (the "straight-18" position).

We have also identified a list of priority countries that we
particularly want to sign and/or ratify. Please contact as many of them
as you can. Contact information for each, background on why we have
chosen these countries, and sample letters that you can adapt for your
own use are available on the HRW website at
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/action/index.htm [2]

ENCOURAGE TO RATIFY: Cambodia, Colombia, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Mali,
Mexico, Morocco, Nepal, Philippines, Sierra Leone, United States,
Uruguay

ENCOURAGE TO SIGN: Algeria, Eritrea, Fiji, Ghana, Japan, Mauritius,
Mozambique, Qatar, South Africa, Thailand, Yemen.

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