step five: developing a policy about child soldiers

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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?

Group Name

1) Has the country you are representing signed or ratified the CRC? Yes
No

2) Has it signed or ratified the OP? Yes
No

3) If the country you are representing has not signed or ratified the OP, do you want to recommend that they do as part of your policy statement? Yes
No

If you do, be sure to include a minimum age for voluntary recruitment in your policy.

4) Based on the treaties the country you are representing has signed or ratified, what are the minimum ages for compulsory and voluntary recruitment?

5) What non-combat tasks should children be allowed to do if the voluntary age of recruitment is below 18 yrs. old?

6) Is there any evidence that child soldiers are being used in the military? If there is, what should be done about it?

7) Is there any evidence that child soldiers are being used by rebel groups fighting against the government? If there is, what actions do you recommend that the government take to address the use of child soldiers by rebel groups?

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Illustration: Felicity O. Yost. Source: Marie, In the Shadow of the Lion, by Jerry Piasecki. © United Nations, 2001