UN envoy says child soldier cases are pushing armed groups to release young fighters

Envoy: prosecutions spur release of child soldiers

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

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

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

Lubanga’s trial, which began nearly a year ago, has been hailed as a legal landmark because it is the first by an international court to focus exclusively on child soldiers.

The Special Court for Sierra Leone also has included child soldier charges in some of its prosecutions.

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

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

The children were among nearly 20,000 former Maoist rebels who have lived in the camps since 2006, when they gave up their 10-year armed rebellion to join a peace process and enter mainstream politics.

The United Nations estimates that up to 250,000 child soldiers still fight in more than a dozen countries.

Coomaraswamy urged judges not to differentiate between children forced to fight and those turned into “bush wives” to cook and provide sex to troops.

“The court should see children as a special category, creating a framework that protects their vulnerability,” she said. “Any framework for protection of children in wartime and accountability of those who use them … must include girls.”

Coomaraswamy also explained to the three-judge panel why children’s fearlessness makes them ideal “cannon fodder” in conflicts from Asia to Africa.

Children under 15 “have an underdeveloped notion of death,” Coomaraswamy said. “The lack of the concept of death makes them fearless in battle, often thinking of it as a game and rushing straight into the line of fire.”

She said the latest “sad manifestation” of rebel groups exploiting such fearlessness is the use of teenagers as suicide bombers in countries such as Afghanistan.

Prosecutors finished presenting their evidence against Lubanga last year after calling 28 witnesses. Lubanga is expected to begin his defense in coming days.