Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 11 May 1999

Vol. 504 No. 4

Written Answers. - Human Rights Abuses.

Monica Barnes

Question:

47 Mrs. Barnes asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if his Department has examined a document on children at war prepared by World Vision Ireland; the steps, if any, he has taken and will take on the matter; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12003/99]

Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Andrews)

I recently received a copy of the briefing paper prepared by World Vision Ireland on children of war. This paper highlights the fact that there are more than 300,000 children actively engaged in conflict around the world. This represents an increase of 50,000 in recent years. War, poverty, displacement and marginalization are the root causes of this horrific phenomenon.

This issue is of particular concern to me and I strongly support international efforts to stop the use of child soldiers. In particular, we are actively supporting the Office of the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. The special representative, Mr. Olaru Otunnu, acts as an advocate for the adoption of measures to protect children and their mothers in areas of armed conflict, to prevent the recruitment of children as armed combatants, and to promote the demobilisation and reintegration of children who have been engaged in armed conflict with particular reference to their mental and physical health and education.

Ireland has recently joined an informal group known as the friends of the special representative, which includes 11 other EU member states and the EU Commission as well as Canada, Japan, Malaysia, India and Kenya. The aim of the group of friends is to support the work of the special representative and to promote measures for the protection of children in armed conflict. In 1999, we will contribute IR£38,000 to a trust fund set up to support the work of the special representative.

The Government attaches great importance to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which is central to the protection and promotion of children's rights on a global level and has achieved almost universal ratification. During the 55th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which concluded its deliberations in Geneva on 30 April, a special session on children was held to mark the tenth anniversary of the convention, during which national delegations and UN agencies addressed concerns regarding implementation of the convention, particularly marginalisation and exclusion, as well as the question of children in armed conflict. The statistics provided at that session by agencies such as the ILO, WHO and UNICEF reflect a situation which is indeed shameful.

We will continue to support the work of the working group set up to draft an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on involvement of children in armed conflicts. The working group is seeking to strengthen international standards for protection of children in armed conflicts, in particular by raising the minimum age for recruitment and participation in hostilities.

Also at this year's commission, a European Union resolution on the rights of the child was adopted by consensus. That resolution was fully supported by the Irish delegation. It condemned the abduction of children in situations of armed conflict; it emphasised the urgent need to raise the current minimum age limit of recruitment and participation of any person in armed conflicts; and it pledged UN member states to address the impact on children of the use of weapons in situations of armed conflict, including small arms and light weapons, and to address the results of the illicit production and traffic of such weapons. Specifically in relation to the situation in northern Uganda which was highlighted in the World Vision Ireland paper, Ireland voted in favour of a resolution at the commission which condemned in the strongest terms all parties involved in the abduction, torture, killing, rape, enslavement and forcible recruitment of children in northern Uganda; demanded the immediate cessation of all abductions and attacks on all civilian populations; and called for the immediate and unconditional release and safe return of all abducted children currently held by the Lords Resistance Army.