Children on the Front Line:
Child Soldiers in Afghanistan

As bombs drop on Afghanistan and the efforts to destroy the al Qaeda network and track down Osama bin Laden continue, the children of Afghanistan are suffering. Reports of the dire food situation and the poor health of many of Afghanistan's youth are widely known. Twenty-five percent of Afghan children die before the age of four — most due to treatable disease.

Many other children in Afghanistan are feeling the affects of war first hand, as soldiers. On Oct. 2, 2001, The New York Times reported provisional commander, Fazil Ahmend Azimi, saying, "It's been three decades of our people going backward in terms of education. We have young boys that are more familiar with a gun than with school." Children in Afghanistan "have been raised in a highly militarized 'kalishnikov culture;' in schools both inside the country and refugee camps, textbooks and teaching methods have used images of tanks, guns and bullets in mathematics and reading classes." But pictures in books are not the only kind of violence these children witness.

The use of children by the warring parties is not new to Afghanistan. Many young boys fought against the Soviet invasion and have since remained in a war-fighting capacity. Recruitment and use of children to participate in war continues today. A new report prepared by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers highlights patterns of child recruitment by the Taliban, United Front (Northern Alliance) and other warring factions in Afghanistan. (The report is available at www.child-soldiers.org).

The Taliban has been vocal in its opposition to using young children as soldiers, but are reported to use the madrasa system to ensure new young recruits to fill their ranks. The Taliban rely on these schools, in Afghanistan and abroad, to find young, vulnerable children to indoctrinate with the Taliban ideology. Technically, madrasas are informal educational institutions that are intended to serve poor students. However, some madrasas are "run by different religious sects, political parties and factions affiliated to warring factions in Afghanistan, Jammu, and Kashmir." While the Taliban claim to rely on "voluntary" recruitment, they are also believed to have demanded certain numbers of new recruits from particular villages or force individuals to buy their exemption. Girls have not been used as soldiers by the Taliban, but the Coalition reports that there have been forced marriages of young girls.

The Northern Alliance has a documented record of using children as young as 11 to fight the Taliban, even though the Northern Alliance say their soldiers must be 18 to join. Some Northern Alliance leaders began their military service as teenagers during the 1980s, and now command units that include young children.

In addition, members of the Western countries that are part of the coalition fighting al Qaeda also use children under 18 in their ranks, including the United States. Thirteen of the 19 NATO member countries allow under 18's to be recruited for the military. Russia is the only permanent five member of the Security Council of the United Nations to have legislation prohibiting the use of soldiers under the age of 18.

While the U.S. government has stated a commitment to ending the use of child soldiers, such practices have not yet been implemented. In July 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, but the Senate has not yet ratified the protocol and the United States is not yet bound to implement it's provisions. The protocol requires state s to "take all feasible measures" not to have under-18's participate in armed conflict, and prohibits non-state groups to recruit, use, and conscript children under 18 in hostilities. The United States has deployed under-18s in recent military actions in the Gulf, Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo.

As part of a U.S. commitment to protecting children at home and abroad, U.S. policy, both through congressional legislation and political decree, should now focus on the problem in Afghanistan. To that end, there are five short-term steps the United States could take.

First, the United States could insist that any government armed forces or armed groups receiving U.S. military cooperation or assistance, including the United Front, do not recruit or use children under the age of 18 as soldiers.

Second, the United States could urge the government of Pakistan to take steps to monitor and prevent the recruitment of children from madrasas, which have frequently sent students to fight in Afghanistan with the Taliban.

Third, the United States could support protections, including the granting of refugee status, for children under 18 fleeing persecution in Afghanistan, including possible military recruitment.

Fourth, the United States could help ensure that any international program for rebuilding Afghanistan, aiding a new government, and helping its people recover after the war include programs to demobilize child soldiers and ensure their reintegration into society.

Fifth, the United States could ratify as quickly as possible the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to demonstrate a commitment to the issue and serve as an example to the rest of the world.

Taking these few steps now would help protect children in Afghanistan, and vulnerable neighboring populations, from direct participation in armed conflict. But more importantly, it would contribute to the long-term development of Afghanistan, and the region, as a peaceful democratic place.

Sources:

Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers "12 Year-Olds Take Up Arms Against Taliban," David Rohde, New York Times, Oct. 2, 2001

 

Rachel Stohl CDI Senior Analyst rstohl@cdi.org

View Standard Version

BACK TO THE TOP    TERRORISM PROJECT HOME    LINKS    CDI HOME