Children and Parents
As Children and Parents, you care very deeply about each other. As Parents you have a need to care for and support your family; as Children you have an equally strong desire to help your parents and the rest of your family. With over 1 billion children living in poverty worldwide, that may well mean helping your family get the food/water, clothing, shelter, and medical supplies it needs to survive—never mind develop and thrive.
  
Before developing a policy for child soldiers, your group needs to:
• Review its answers to the Military Activities Age Chart.
• 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 Facts About Child Soldiers.
• Read The Voices of Children at War by having members of the group chose roles and read the play aloud.
• 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
Use the information from these resources to help you answer the questions on the next two pages. Your answers to these questions will help you set policies regarding child soldiers. As you develop your policy, remember that your task is to take the perspective of Children and Parents 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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