Military Advisors
As Military Advisors, you must advocate for the needs of a strong military. Keeping these interests in mind, you must decide whether to sanction the use of child soldiers or to accept international standards for recruiting soldiers for your armed forces.
  
Before developing a policy for child soldiers, your group needs to:
• Review the use of child soldiers by the government and/or opposition groups in the country you are studying (based on the Child Soldiers Global Report 2004).
o Try to determine how the conflict in that country might influence military policy.
o Describe the current conflict as best you can and what you see as the military needs facing your country.
• Find out if the country you’re representing has signed or ratified either the Convention on the Rights of the Child or the Optional Protocol. If it has signed the OP, look through the "Declarations and Reservations" section to find the minimum age it has set for voluntary military recruitment.
• Read the Paris Principles, especially sections: * 1.14 and how they relate to the CRC and OP
* 6.0 which gives information about how children become soldiers
• Read the article about child soldiers in the United Kingdom. As you read, consider the costs and benefits of using child soldiers. Imagine how a military advisor would answer the questions below.
Use the information from this resource to fill out the following form and use it while presenting your policy recommendation to the Legislative Assembly. As you develop your policy, remember that your task as Military Advisors to formulate military policies in the country you are representing to answer the question: WHAT SHOULD BE DONE ABOUT CHILD SOLDIERS?
Illustration:
Felicity O. Yost. Source:
Marie, In the Shadow of the Lion, by Jerry Piasecki. ©
United Nations, 2001
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