The United Nations, Child Soldiers, And The Rule Of Law

Long before Saladin the Kurd in took power in Egypt and Syria in 1174 child soldiers, child laborers and child prostitutes were a fact of life. Before the emergence of sharia law, before the Christian era, before the appearance of monotheistic Judaism and before the birth of the Orthodox Church.

In spite of efforts by Islamic fundamentalists, one can find evidence of this fact at the Library of Alexandria. The library was saved from recent attacks by radical Islamasts only because employees and friends created a human chain to block the attackers from entering and looting the library. More details at the library website here http://www.bibalex.org/Home/Default_EN.aspx

This is not the first time efforts have been made to destroy a culture. One can examine the comments of Algerian Lakhdar Brahimi, one of The Elders Group that includes Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter and others, on the theme of child soldiers for further reference. As a trouble shooter for the UN and the Arab League, Brahimi going beyond the child soldier issue, notes that the great museums and libraries in Iraq, a great civilization, were destroyed by fundamentalists during the U.S. occuptation of Iraq. According to Brahimi, “Bremer (the U.S. leader in Iraq) “wrote the checks and had the power.” Schools, libraries and museums were destroyed.

What followed in the Middle East, in sub-Saharan Africa, the African Lakes Region, and across South Asia is well known, and much of the conflict has involved child soldiers in combat and support roles. Child soldier detection and mediation is one compoment of UN peacekeeping activities. And even though assistance and information can be provided by NGOs, governments, and consultants, the capabilities of the UN are been overloaded.

In September, the United States quietly made a $1.56 billion payment to the United Nations earmarked for a portion of the total stated 2013 peacekeeping budget, which a senior UN financial official from Japan says is around $3 billion.

There are currently an estimated 250,000 child soldiers operating around the world. Many are belong to nations and groups who confront UN peacekeepers.

The UN started to expand its role in the child protection business after the Vietnam War and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Both wars saw the participation of child soldiers. Vietnamese diplomat Le Duc Tho, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing “peace” to Vietnam refused to accept it. Henry Kissinger, who once boasted “power is the ultimate aphrodeisiac” did.

Since 2000, when it was adopted by the UN General Assembly, the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits governments and rebel groups from deploying children under 18 years in any form of armed conflict.

But whether it’s Myanmar, Mali or South Sudan, the difference between armed conflict and unarmed conflict has become negotiable. A bargaining chip.

Nobody knows that more than Madame Leila Zerrougui, the former Algerian supreme court judge who has been the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict.

You can access her official UN biography by clicking this link  http://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/about-us/leila-zerrougui/

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to her address the plenary session of the Third Conference on Child Labor in Brasilia, sponsored mainly by the UN International Labor Organization and the government of Brazil. After her speech, we had a discussion in the press center.

Tireless in her efforts, Ms. Zerrougui as a native of North Africa, said that she believes in the Arab Spring movement and strongly supports the rule of law in the protection of child soldiers against abuse. 

She believes that free public education, as it is offered in her native Algeria, is essential to pushing back the use of child soldiers in general. Zerrougui also seeks to complete a chain of global legal responsibility in connection with tracking child soldiers. As part of her mission to “mainstream” this idea her she speaks and coordinates activities with various UN organizations, including UNESCO, the ILO and others, effectively selling and getting buy-in from them.

It all sounds good if you are part of the high volume hope machine playing out inside the UN and NGO culture.

But with traditional media struggling to stay relevant in a digital world and public relations serving as the new journalism the discussion of child labor, children’s rights and human rights serves distinct communities that are tangential and secondary to the real axis of power.

In 2008 the U.S. Congress passed the Child Soldier Protection Act, which finally went into effect in 2010. The law authorizes the United States to restrict military aid, weapons deals and training to those nations or non-state (terrorist) organizations that it suspects of violating the UN Optional Protocol, which Washington has ratified. But it also allows the president to issue waivers to those believed to be using “good” child soldiers and to penalize those are using “bad” ones.

Supporters of Obama’s waivers contend that the actions of the White House have reduced the number of “bad” child soldiers and the nations and organizations who use them. Critics maintain exactly the opposite, suggesting that the evidence is qualitative and subject to interpretation. 

One major groups based in the United States, Invisible Children, has taken matters into their own hands. After promoting a controversial video on the internet about renegade African syncretic leader and child soldier abuser Joseph Kony, the organization received donations of millions of dollars and now has hundreds of thousands of followers. Subsequently the organization was strongly criticized in a publication operated by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, which supports UN peacekeeping and child soldier policies.

Free public education in Algeria has helped the former French colony provide 7,000 doctors who work in France and help reduce the shortage of doctors there. But it won’t resolve the fate of the quarter million child soldiers unless there is some agreement to balance the interests of international law with sharia law and that could be a long time coming.