Child Soldiers in DRC
Child Soldiers in DRC
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, is no stranger
to war and instability. Political violence has blighted the country for
decades. However, the
violence intensified after the Rwandan civil war in 1994, when Rwandan
Hutu rebels known as Interahamwe fled to the DRC, fearing reprisals for
their part in the mass killing of Rwandan Tutsis. In 1998, the
Interahamwe joined forces
with the Zairian army to launch an offensive against the Congolese
Tutsis in eastern Zaire. The war is extraordinarily complex with huge
numbers of rebel groups fighting each other, with many swapping sides.
Children are frequently snatched from their families by rebel groups to
become soldiers. Millions of civilians have died to date, roughly half
of whom
are children under five years old.
It has been estimated that
one in ten child soldiers - or 30,000 children - are found in the DRC.
The UN believes that 15-30% of all newly-recruited combatants in the
DRC army are under 18 years old. One reason the army, and the rebels,
use child soldiers is that the
enemy cannot find it in themselves to kill children. Therefore, the
number of
recruits remains high as fewer of them are lost in battle.
In
the DRC, child soldiers are forced to commit the most atrocious acts of
murder, acts which mentally scar them for life. Amnesty International
reports that, as a 15-year-old soldier, 'Kalami' was made to 'kill a
family, to cut up their bodies and eat them'. He goes on to say 'my
life is lost. I have nothing to live for'. Female child soldiers are
frequently used as sexual slaves by the commanders.
The DRC has ratified a number of international treaties which
protect the rights of children. In 2001, for example, they ratified UN
Security Council Resolution 1341, which called for 'an end to the
recruitment of chil soldiers to ensure their ... demobilisation, return
and rehabilitation'. According to Amnesty International, these
commitments have proved little more than public relations exercises.
Many former child soldiers are unable to return to their families. There are a number of reasons for this. The first is that many people were killed in the war and
some of these children may not have any immediate family left. Secondly, some
families will not accept child soldiers, their sons or brothers, back. These
children have killed and are not welcome at home. Other families discourage
their children from returning home so as to protect them from being harmed by
members of their community who think those children are responsible for killing
or any other bad deeds done in the past.
For child privacy reasons, we cannot say if any of the children
currently in our two children's villages in the DRC are former child soldiers.
As with HIV/AIDS patients in some places sadly being an ex-child soldier is as likely to make them a target as an object of sympathy. But what the SOS Children's Villages provide is safety. It is the most
vulnerable children - street children, lone orphans - that are most
easily recruited by the army as they have no family, no hope and have
nothing to lose by joining the army. They are also easy targets for
forced recruitment and abduction. By providing orphans with a home and
a family, there is almost no chance that our children will chose to, or
are forced to, become child soldiers. By sponsoring a child
in the DRC, you can ensure these children can continue to live within
the safety of the children's village and have a loving family for life.