Child Soldier Relief

Information, research, news, resources for and about child soldiers

February 5, 2010 • 10:44 am 0

Lubanga Trial: January in Review

With the resumption of the Lubanga Trial at the ICC, CSR Director of Research Projects Kate Davey will once again be following the trial closely with summaries, analysis and interviews. The following is a summary of trial activity for the month of January.

On January 7…

Thomas Lubanga’s trial resumed with the testimony of Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Under-Secretary-General, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, who appeared as an expert witness. Coomaraswamy requested justice for girl child soldiers “regardless of whether or not they took part in direct combat in armed conflict.”

Lead defense lawyer, Catherine Mabille, expressed concern to the Court on January 8 that Lubanga’s case could be weakened as their witnesses may not be able to appear in the order the defense has listed due to passport difficulties.

On January 12…

a witness, whose face and voice was distorted so as to be protected during his testimony, explained that he wanted to testify to tell the Court of the “murders, killings, sexual slavery, and sexual violence” by Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) soldiers in his village. He also requested his village receive reparations for the harm they experienced by Lubanga’s soldiers. This witness is the first of three participating witnesses in the trial to offer testimony and be questioned by his lawyer.

The defense asked the unnamed witness on Tuesday, January 13, how he knew that it was UPC soldiers that attacked his school, conscripted his students and attacked him.

A second participating victim, a former child soldier, testified on January 14 and 15 describing his abduction, the first battle he took part in, in which his friends “died like flies” and how he was tortured by Union of Congolese Patriots while at their camp.

On January 19…

the defense questioned the second victim, who testified at Court last week, about his abduction by the UPC.

The third participating witness in trial, a former child soldier, told the Court that he knew it was UPC soldiers that abducted him by their uniforms. He also told the Court that he had escaped from the UPC during a battle at Mongwalu because he was afraid he would be killed.

On January 27…

the defense opened its case with Catherine Mabille, Lubanga’s lead lawyer, stating the defense will show that the testimonies of the child soldiers brought forth by the prosecution were false and that the defense will request the case be discontinued. “In particular we intend to demonstrate that all the individuals who were presented as child soldiers as well as their parents in some cases deliberately lied before this court. The defense intend to show that six of them were never child soldiers, the seventh lied about his age and the conditions in which he enrolled, and the eighth never belonged to the UPC,” Mabille said. The defense called its first witness, who spent most of his testimony in closed session.

The defense’s first witness testified on January 28, that his son had never been in an army and had not been a child soldier in the UPC even though an unnamed organization had been presenting the boy as a child soldier. It is not known if the aforementioned child was a witness for the prosecution.

This post was created by Kate Davey through sourcing from the reporting of Wairagala Wakabi for lubangatrial .org

Filed under: Congo, Lubanga Trial , child soldier, Congo, court, Lubanga, War

January 20, 2010 • 10:57 am 0

Supporting Children in Haiti

Please consider donating $10 to CSR to help support children in Haiti.

CSR is collaborating with one of our partners, Discover the Journey, by applying our donations to their current work helping victims of the earthquake in Haiti. For the next four weeks, all donations to CSR will be going to their work there.

In particular, DTJ is working to:

2. Document the quake’s impact on children

Our primary focus will be listening to children in crisis, telling their story and amplifying their voices. Haitians do want their stories to be told, they do want their suffering to be known, and they do want the world to hear their cry.

4. Reconnaissance and Research

We have started accepting names/photos/details of missing friends and families. We will be keeping our eyes and ears open to search for individuals still missing and ask for word on their well being. If you, or someone you know has a missing family member, please send their name/photo/contact details/description/last-seen-location to haiti@discoverthejourney.org.

Other projects include providing medical support and disaster assistance, and reconnaissance and research.

For more information, check out their website or follow their work on Twitter.

Filed under: Human Rights , children, donation, Haiti

January 2, 2010 • 2:04 pm 0

Lubanga Trial to Resume January 7

After a delay of more than five months, the International Criminal Court will resume the trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo next week. The defense will present its case against the original charges of enlisting, conscripting and using child soldiers under the age of 15; significantly, in early December LubangaTrial.org noted, “appeals judges reversed a July decision that could have paved the way for charges of sexual slavery and cruel and inhumane treatment to be added to the indictment.” Presiding judge Adrian Fulford emphasized that there would be no further delays to the trial. Also, on December 15, 2009, the court released the:

Redacted Decision on the “Prosecution’s Request for Lifting of Redactions to the Identity of One Individual providing Rule 77 Information and Request for Redactions further to Article 54(3)(f) and Rules 81(2) and 81(4)” and “Prosecution’s application for variation in the protective measures concerning witness 44 and witness 101″ of 24 July 2009. (see icc-cpi.int for more information.)

Prosecution rested its case on July 14.

Filed under: Congo, Intl Criminal Ct, Lubanga Trial , child soldier, Sierra Leone, War

November 17, 2009 • 2:52 pm 0

The Charles Taylor Trial Series – Part Two: Charles Taylor’s Use of Child Soldiers

Child Soldier Relief is creating a three part series on the Charles Taylor Trial; the second report in the series explores Charles Taylor’s use of child soldiers.

The Council of Foreign Relations reports that in the late eighties and early nineties Charles Taylor recruited child soldiers into his National Patriotic Front of Liberia movement and created the Small Boys Unit, a group of child soldiers within his rebel movement.

As President of Liberia from 1997 to 2003, Charles Taylor allegedly also sought child soldiers in the most recent conflict between Liberia and Sierra Leone. One of the reasons child soldiers were sought by Taylor and rebel groups is that children don’t fully understand the danger that faces them in battle. In fact, according to IRIN, child soldiers are “highly prized for being fearless in combat.” A militia commander in Liberia told IRIN why he thinks child soldiers can be the “best and bravest” on the front line, “They can fight more than we the big people….It’s hard for them to just retreat.”

Because of their “fearlessness” child soldiers were often used as officers. “These children were given high positions. They were called colonel and general, and this made them feel like they had power,” said UNICEF Child Protection Officer Michael Charley about child soldiers in Sierra Leone.

As Gloria and Mary, two former child soldiers in Liberia, explain in a video by the Guardian, girls taken as child soldiers had extra burdens to bear: being raped at the will of soldiers. “…For a girl, sometimes we used to be raped by [the soldiers] not just by one person, sometimes by two or three and afterwards we still had to carry [weapons] to the frontline. So the girls were maltreated more than the boys,” said Gloria.

“When I think about the war, I think of doing bad things to myself. Sometimes I just want to kill myself…but if I think about the future I will be happy,” said Gloria.

For more on the Charles Taylor Trial…

Filed under: C. Taylor Trial, Liberia, Sierra Leone , charles taylor, child soldier, Liberia, Sierra Leone, War

November 5, 2009 • 9:15 pm 0

Child Recruitment Intensifies in DRC

Despite increased publicity on the use of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, recruitment is increasing once again. Aid agencies report that “in the past few months, fighting between the DRC army and Rwandan Hutu rebels and other militias has intensified, deepening the crisis for the country’s youth.” They describe the “situation as ‘catastrophic’”.

Increasingly brutal techniques are being employed to force the children to fight and kill. According to reporter Mohammed Adow from Al Jazeera, children “are trained to kill almost as soon as they are recruited” and are being forced “to kill a member of his own family” as part of their training.

According to Human Rights Watch the Congolese army (FARDC), the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, pro-government Mai Mai groups, and the Lord’s Resistance Army are all parties in the DRC conflict known to use child soldiers.

For more information and a video reporting of the story.

Filed under: Congo , child soldiers, Congo, DRC, War

October 14, 2009 • 3:24 pm 0

Too Young to Fight: A review of the laws that protect child soldiers and children in armed conflict

A CSR Special Report

Kate Davey Director of Research Projects

Sarah Pierce Legal Intern and Director of Outreach, Development and Communication

Children have been used as tools of war throughout history, serving not only as foot soldiers on the front line, but also as spies, porters and sexual slaves. Lawmakers and human rights organizations generally recognize the following from the 1997 Capetown Principles as the standard for defining a child soldier: “a child soldier is any person under 18 years of age who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers and anyone accompanying such groups, other than family members. The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms.”