More than 11,000 child soldiers were freed from military slavery last year, but the United Nations has said there may still be hundreds of thousands left around the world.
The UN believes hundreds of thousands of children are forced to fight at
gunpoint by the Taliban in Afghanistan, Congo warlord Bosco Ntaganda, the
Shebab in Somalia, Ansar Dine in Mali and other terror groups and private
armies around the world.
The 14-year jail term ordered against Thomoas Lubanga by the International
Criminal Court on Tuesday is a "historic" signal, according to
Radhika Coomaraswamy, who ends a six-year term this month as UN special
representative on children in conflict.
The crime of recruiting and using children as soldiers "is now written in
stone, nobody can say they are unaware of it," Coomaraswamy told AFP in
an interview.
Governments are starting to get the message. Only Lubanga's native Democratic
Republic of Congo and Sudan are holding up a UN target to rid all government
armies around the world of child soldiers by 2015.
Under-aged combatants have existed for time immemorial. Alexander the Great
trained as a child soldier, and desperate armies in both world wars enlisted
and coerced youth fighters.
But the practice has only been on the world "radar" for the past 20 years, said Coomaraswamy.
But the practice has only been on the world "radar" for the past 20 years, said Coomaraswamy.
"Mr Lubanga is the classic case from the Great African wars of the 1990s
which was basically child abduction, the use of drugs, children used as
soldiers, so he is as bad as they come," the UN official said.
In civil wars around the world, drugs have been used to turn children against their families.
Young girls are turned into sex slaves, or soldiers, or both.
Telegraph
In civil wars around the world, drugs have been used to turn children against their families.
Young girls are turned into sex slaves, or soldiers, or both.
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