Durbin Introduces Bill to Stop Aid to Governments that Use Child Soldiers
Press Release
DURBIN INTRODUCES BILL TO STOP AID TO GOVERNMENTS THAT USE CHILD SOLDIERS
U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today introduced legislation to encourage foreign governments to disarm, demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers. The Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2007 will ensure that no U.S. taxpayer dollars are used to support foreign governments that recruit or use children as soldiers. Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) has joined Senator Durbin as a cosponsor.
In over fifteen countries, children are direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces. Physically vulnerable and easily intimidated, children typically make obedient soldiers and participate in all aspects of warfare. Many are recruited by force, and often compelled to follow orders under threat of death. As society breaks down during conflict, leaving children no access to school, driving them from their homes, or separating them from family members, many children perceive armed groups as their best chance for survival. Others seek escape from poverty or join military forces to avenge family members who have been killed.
"Hundreds of thousands children around the world today are used as child soldiers. These boys and girls wield automatic weapons on the front lines of combat, serve as human mine detectors, participate in suicide missions, carry supplies, and act as spies, messengers or lookouts and sex slaves - endangering their health and lives and sacrificing their childhoods," said Durbin. "Over the last decade two million children have died in armed conflict and nearly six million children have been injured. Most troubling to me is that children have served as soldiers for governments that receive U.S. military aid. It's time for that to end."
Using the U.S. Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights as a guide, the Durbin bill would restrict U.S. military training, financing and other defense-related aid to countries that violate the bill's standards. These reports, issued annually, highlight the use of child soldiers by all armed groups in every country and what steps have been taken by the governments of those countries to end the practice.
In the 2006 report, issued in March of this year, 25 countries were singled out as nations that have recruited or are currently recruiting child soldiers. Of those 25 nations, 16 countries have used child soldiers in direct hostilities with armed groups - either as part of government forces or in militias. Since 2001, 14 of those nations have received U.S. military assistance.
The report also noted that of the 16 nations where child soldiers are currently being recruited or conscripted, 10 nations used children as part of government security forces or government sponsored armed groups. 9 of the 10 nations cited in the report have received U.S. aid since 2001.
Durbin said that the practice of providing military assistance to governments and militias who exploit children violates U.S. policy and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which the United States Ratified in 2002. Nations which could be affected by this legislation include: Burundi, Chad, Colombia, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Sri Lanka and Sudan.
Under Durbin's legislation, a child solder is defined as:
# any person under age 18 who takes a direct part in hostilities as a member of governmental armed forces;
# any person under age 18 who has been compulsorily recruited into governmental armed forces;
# any person under age 16 voluntarily recruited into governmental armed forces;
# any person under age 18 recruited or used in hostilities by armed forces distinct from the armed forces of a State;
# persons identified as child soldiers may be serving in any capacity, including in support roles such as, but not limited to, cooks, porters, messengers, medics, guards, sex slaves, etc.
Next week (Tuesday, April 24), Durbin, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law, will hold a hearing on the issue of child soldiers. The hearing will look at the continuing use of children in war despite the fact that that is widely seen as a war crime. Expert witnesses from non-governmental and faith-based organizations will testify along with Ishmael Beah, bestselling author of "A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier."
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