UN ‘Shame list’ includes LTTE

The world’s “most persistent violators” of children’s rights were named this week in a report from U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, which included details of a training camp for young girls run by the al-Qaida-linked al Shabaab movement in Somaliaand the now extinct rebel group in Lanka, ‘LTTE’.

The report also implicated both the Taliban and the Afghan national police, the armed forces in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), al-Qaida in Iraq, Somalia’s Transitional Government and rebel groups in Colombia,Philippines, Sri Lanka, Chad,Uganda and Sudan.

While most of the entities were put on the “shame list” for recruiting child soldiers, some -- such as al Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) operating in the DRC, the Central African Republic (CAR), and southern Sudan-- were accused of raping, killing and maiming children.

“Combat is no place for children. We still live in a world with those who would use children as spies, soldiers and human shields,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the top U.N. official on child protection.

“The shifting nature of conflict has put many children on the front lines. Too often children become collateral damage during military operations,” she added.

Afghanistansaw a rise in the number of children hit by the conflict, with more than 1,000 killed or injured in 2009. Investigators found that the Taliban and other anti-government forces are using children as young as 13 -- including some brought in from neighboring Pakistan-- to carry out suicide attacks and plant explosives.

The Afghan national police also got a black mark for using harsh interrogation techniques like beatings and electric shocks against arrested children. Incidents of school burning, forced closures as well as threats to students and teachers also increased, the report said.

In Myanmar, the U.N. had limited access to the military government’s recruitment activities. But the International Labor Organization (ILO) indicated that the nation’s army holds mandatory training sessions aimed at actively recruiting children, as are rebel groups in conflict with the government.

In Iraq, al-Qaida and other insurgent groups are luring children into become suicide bombers, the U.N. said. For instance, four children between the ages of 14 and 16 were used as suicide bombers or to throw grenades at security forces in April and May 2009 in Kirkukcity. A total of 110 children have been arrested or convicted by Iraqi authorities for terrorist activities.

Several African nations are plagued by recruitment of children by government forces and rebel groups in persisting conflicts. In 2009, 848 children, including 52 girls, were recruited in the DRC, mostly by the state military. The notorious LRA also abducted over a hundred children there and subjected some of them to sexual violence.

The LRA was also accused of using children in the Central African Republic as combatants, spies, sex slaves and porters. The rebel group also abducted of 117 children in South Sudan last year, out of which 18 were killed.

As a whole, South Sudan presented a mix picture where children are no longer being actively recruited by the rebel group turned government, Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), but continued to work for the army to support their families.

The main concern in the southern part of the country, which is Christian, is the lack of resources for the demobilization of the children who return to the military barracks for food, shelter and schooling provided by the SPLA, the report said.

Another disturbing trend reported from South Sudanis the continuing abduction of children in the tribal wars between the Lou Nuer, Dinka and Murle. Since March 2009, four brutal massacres have claimed the lives of 2,500 people, mostly children and women.

In Darfur, the U.N. noted that the Sudanese government had no policy of child recruitment and the number of kids enlisted by pro-government militias had dropped. Children, however, continued to be recruited by the rebel groups fighting the government in the war-torn region.

In Somalia, the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government has been recruiting children to fight against several militia groups, especially the dangerous al-Qaida-linked al Shabaab, which controls large swathes of the territory.

In March 2009, al Shabaab recruited 600 children, some of them as young as 9 years of age. The U.N. reported that the extremist Islamist group generally doesn’t recruit girls for combat roles, but does use them to carry out tasks like cooking, cleaning, transporting detonators and collecting intelligence.

The report identified an al Shabaab training camp near the southern city of Kismayo, where about 120 girls learn intelligence gathering techniques and how to transport explosives and driving. Some of the girls are also recruited to be married to the male fighters.

This year, Burundiwas removed from the list since all the children who had been recruited by the rebel group Forces Nationales de Liberation (FNL) have been reunited with their families and FNL has stopped using children.

^Aol