Ezidischer Junge als FSA-Kämpfer getötet?

Ein im August 2014 beim IS-Überfall auf Şengal verschleppter ezidischer Junge soll bei Kämpfen in der syrischen Provinz Hama als Mitglied der protürkischen „FSA“ getötet worden sein.

Ein beim Überfall der Terrormiliz „Islamischer Staat“ (IS) am 3. August 2014 aus dem Şengal verschleppter ezidischer Junge ist offenbar als Mitglied der unter türkischer Schirmherrschaft agierenden „Syrischen Nationalarmee“ (SNA) bei Kämpfen um die Provinz Hama getötet worden. Das berichtet die Nachrichtenagentur ANHA (Hawarnews), die ihren Sitz in Rojava/Nordsyrien hat. Weiter heißt es, SNA-nahe Accounts hätten den Tod des Eziden in sozialen Netzwerken publik gemacht. Angeblich sei der Junge zum Zeitpunkt seines Todes elf Jahre alt gewesen, möglicherweise ist er jedoch älter.

Weiterlesen: ANFNews

Ein ehemaliger Kindersoldat aus Uganda erzählt: "Ich wollte nur noch heim zu meiner Mutter".

Mit gerade mal zehn Jahren war Innocent Opwonya bereits ein Soldat. Ein Kindersoldat. In seiner Heimat, dem afrikanischen Land Uganda, musste er im Bürgerkrieg kämpfen. Das war im Jahr 2000. Jetzt ist Opwonya 29 Jahre alt und lebt mit seiner deutschen Ehefrau in Köln, wo er gerade sein Studium abschließt. Als Kindersoldat hat er schlimme Dinge erlebt, deshalb setzt er sich heute dafür ein, dass anderen Kindern nicht dasselbe passiert.

Weiterlesen: Badische Zeitung

Fast 900 Kindersoldaten in Nigeria wieder frei

Bereits im Oktober 2018 hatte die Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) 833 Kinder entlassen. Grundlage dafür war ein im Jahr zuvor unterzeichnetes Abkommen, um die Rekrutierung von Kindern zu beenden. Die CJTF ist seit 2013 aktiv und unterstützt laut UNICEF die nigerianischen Sicherheitskräfte im Kampf gegen die islamistische Terrorgruppe Boko Haram. Nach Schätzungen wurden zwischen 2013 und 2017 mehr als 3500 Minderjährige von bewaffneten Gruppen rekrutiert. Andere wurden entführt, vergewaltigt und ermordet.

Weiterlesen: Deutsche Welle

Wie Ex-Kindersoldaten in Kolumbien ihren Frieden finden wollen

„Ich habe manchmal eine solche Wut“, sagt Maria*, 19, wenn sie über den Krieg spricht. „Der Krieg hat mir so viel weggenommen, meine Eltern, meine Geschwister, das Zuhause, die Umarmungen, das Gefühl, dass du unterstützt wirst, wenn du es brauchst, die Ausbildung.“ Gebracht hat ihr der Krieg das Gefühl der Einsamkeit, der Hilflosigkeit, der Ohnmacht. Maria ist eines von Dutzenden jungen Opfern des bewaffneten Konfliktes, die Zuflucht gefunden haben im Projekt Benposta in der kolumbianischen Hauptstadt. Und die ein neues Leben angefangen hat, wie alle Kinder und Jugendlichen, die der Gewalt in Kolumbien entkommen konnten.

Weiterlesen: Augsburger Allgemeine

In South Sudan, girls forced into war face gender double standards in peace

Women and girls bear an additional burden in any war, as the threat of sexual violence or abuse combines with the standard risks of conflict.

The conflict in South Sudan is no different. Since it began in December 2013, both sides have been accused of using rape and sexual assault as a “weapon of war”. UN envoy Pramila Patten told the Security Council last month that the practice “escalated dramatically” in 2018.

For women and girls kidnapped by armed groups, even if they survive widespread sexual violence and forced marriage, many are left unable to fully rejoin their communities, in part because the programmes intended to ease their transition back into society are traditionally designed for boys and controlled by men.

In South Sudan, more than 950 children abducted by armed groups were released in 2018, as a peace deal, signed in September, tenuously holds. Around 28 percent of those officially released were girls. Many more have reportedly been leaving or escaping captivity unofficially.

More: The New Huanitarian

Reporter’s Diary: Heal Somalia’s former child soldiers, heal a nation

“Sometimes I wake up screaming”

Even by Mogadishu standards, late September was particularly violent.

Amino Hussein Hassan, a female law student, was shot dead on her university campus. Yahye Amir, a prominent economics professor and political analyst, escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb strapped to his car exploded, killing his brother. And Ahmed Mukhtar Salah, from the long-marginalised minority Bantu community, was beaten and burnt to death by a mob after his nephew married an ethnic Somali woman.

Violence has been a way of life in Somalia since the outbreak of the civil war in 1991, seeping deep into the nation’s marrow as clan conflict gradually morphed into an all-out war against the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist group al-Shabab. “The layers of violence that people have had to digest is one of the key problems for building a peaceful and healthier society,” Laetitia Bader, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told me recently.

Read more The New Humanitarian

No child soldiers: The next steps in Central African Republic

At least 12,000 children have returned from armed groups in CAR. Now what?

Last September, Central African Republic became the 167th country to ratify the UN child soldier treaty, known by its acronym, OPAC. The government thus committed to outlawing the use of child soldiers.

Yet verified cases of child recruitment quadrupled in 2017 compared to 2016, according to the UN’s latest Children and Armed Conflict report, with 196 boys and 103 girls affected. The numbers are likely far greater; with 80 percent of the country controlled by armed groups, confirming child recruitments is an onerous task.

More difficult still is ensuring that the 12,000 children who are known to have returned home since 2014 integrate back into society and resist joining up again – as well as ensuring that new children aren’t recruited.

Read More The New Humanitarian

It is time to end the child soldier stereotype

From Syria and the Democratic Republic of Congo to Myanmar and Nigeria, countless children remain trapped in armed conflict.

The UN Secretary General’s 2017 Report on Children and Armed Conflict names 56 non-state armed groups and seven state armed forces in 14 countries that recruit children.

Escalating conflicts have led to a spike in child recruitment in several regions. Deepening unrest in Congo saw more than 3,000 child soldiers recruited in 2017, levels in the Middle East have doubled, while the shocking scale of recruitment in South Sudan was laid bare again this month by Human Rights Watch.

“In conflicts around the world, children have become frontline targets, used as human shields, killed, maimed and recruited to fight. Rape, forced marriage, abduction and enslavement have become standard tactics,” a UNICEF statement declared in December.

More The New Humanitarian

Kindersoldatinnen: Hear the voices of Congo’s girl child soldiers

Multiple conflicts simmer across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, further impoverishing already struggling rural communities, trapping children in a web of violence.

The conflicts have destroyed communities and created thousands of child soldiers, serving directly on the front lines, or labouring as porters, cooks, and spies. Up to 40 percent of them are girls.

In 2016, Child Soldiers International interviewed 150 girls formerly associated with some of the country's multiple armed groups.

The interviews form the basis of our new report, What The Girls Say, released today on 19 June – the UN's International Day For Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict. It gives a voice to former girl child soldiers, revealing testimonies that are rarely heard and often overlooked.

Read more The New Humanitarian

Kony’s killers – are child soldiers accountable when they become men?

The trial of Dominic Ongwen, a senior member of the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army, opens on Tuesday before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Many horrors will be recounted, but the case also throws up deep ethical questions: is a child, brutalised and turned into a killer, fully responsible for his or her actions? If the abuses of government forces aren’t also being investigated, at what point does it become victor’s justice?

Abducted by the LRA at the age of 10, Ongwen became a protégé of rebel leader Joseph Kony and was forced to witness and carry out acts of extreme violence. He will be appearing before Trial Chamber IX to answer 70 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. They include allegations of murder, rape, sexual slavery, torture, pillaging, and the conscription of children aged under 15 for combat.

More: The New Humanitarian

Five countries where child soldiers are still recruited

      Britain: Rights groups have campaigned to end the army’s practice of recruiting 16-year-olds. Some 17-year-olds were deployed to the Gulf War in 1991, and to Kosovo in 1999, but the army subsequently barred anyone under 18 from combat. The army requires parental consent for any recruit under the age of 18, but Child Soldiers International says the recruitment process does not guarantee that such consent has been given.

·      Myanmar: As part of its reform process, the military signed a joint action plan with the UN in 2012 to demobilise all child soldiers. It has released them sporadically over the last four years, most recently this past March. The task is harder than it may appear: families sometimes send young sons to join the army for financial reasons, and recruitment may be ongoing in remote areas although the military officially banned the practice and even set up a telephone hotline to report child soldiers in its ranks. The UN lists seven non-state armed groups in Myanmar that also use child soldiers.

·      The Democratic Republic of Congo: More than 30,000 children were released from the national army between 2004 and 2006 as part of a military reform process following a peace agreement in 2002. However, the reforms were not successful and the war did not end. Those failures also represented a big step backwards for those advocating the release of child soldiers. Recruitment continues today, and hundreds of children are reported to be serving in the armed forces, according to Child Soldiers International. Many more have been recruited by rebel groups.

·      South Sudan: Even before splitting from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan passed laws that made it illegal to use child soldiers and began releasing them. But in December 2013, the world’s newest country descended into civil war and the recruitment of child soldiers began anew. Since then, government and rebel forces have used as many as 16,000 children, according to UNICEF. A December 2015 report by Human Rights Watch named more than 15 commanders and officials from the government and rebel forces who used child soldiers.

·      Yemen: In 2014, Yemen signed up to a UN action plan to end recruitment of child soldiers by the country’s armed forces. The last 13 months of war have not only put that plan on hold but meant an increase in children taking part in the conflict. UNICEF estimates that children make up a third of the people fighting in Yemen, including Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the deposed but internationally recognised (and Saudi Arabian-backed) President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi. Human Rights Watch said last year that the Houthis have intensified their use of children as scouts, guards, runners and fighters.

More: The New Humanitarian

Philippines strives to end recruitment of child soldiers

The publicity surrounding an 11-year-old communist rebel reported to have surrendered to the Philippines military this month has served as a harsh reminder of the work still to be done to rid the South East Asian country of the scourge of child soldiers.

The boy, referred to in news reports by his nickname Dodong, was recruited aged just six into the New People’s Army (NPA), which has been waging a Maoist insurgency in the southern Philippines for decades.

“He personally witnessed and was involved in laying some improvised explosive device along the highways. He figured in at least six gun battles,” said Philippines army spokesman Major Emmanuel Garcia.

“The NPA are grossly violating the rights of children and subjecting them to dangerous situations,” he added. “People need to know this.”

Requests to interview the boy to verify his story were denied, but IRIN understands he is now in the hands of social workers, who are trying to reunite him with his parents.

More: The New Humanitarians