DRC 'is failing child soldiers'
2006-10-11 08:16
London - The release, protection and re-integration of child soldiers into society should be the first priority of the Democratic Republic of Congo's new government, said Amnesty International on Wednesday.
The London-based human rights group criticised the interim power-sharing administration and said its disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) programme was failing to meet traumatised youngsters' needs.
It estimated that at least 11 000 children were either still with armed groups or unaccounted for more than two years after the DDR programme was launched to release and re-integrate child soldiers back into civilian life.
It said that the government of Joseph Kabila - a candidate in the second round of the presidential elections at the end of this month - had done little or nothing to trace and recover missing children, particularly girls.
Rebel fighters 'unwilling to release girls'
In certain areas, Amnesty estimated that girls accounted for less than two percent of the child soldiers released from armed groups and into the DDR programme.
Tawanda Hondora, the deputy director of Amnesty's Africa programme, said yet they made up about 40% of under-18s illegally used to fight by armed forces and groups.
Amnesty said commanders and rebel fighters were either unwilling to release girls, whom they considered their sexual playthings, or were viewed as legitimate "dependants" by DRC officials willing to turn a blind eye.
This had done nothing to stop the new recruitment of children, including some who were only recently demobilised and reunited with their families, said Hondora, urging international action to tackle the problem.
Abandonment of children
It said: "The new government must make it its first priority to ensure that all children associated with armed forces and groups are released, protected and provided with meaningful educational and income-generating opportunities to enable them to stay within their communities.
"This is the only way to prevent the re-recruitment and further abandonment of these children."
Kabila and former rebel chief turned vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba were involved in a run-off for the former Belgian colony's top job on October 29 in the first multi-party poll in 46 years.
The elections - the first round for which took place on July 30 - were meant to ensure lasting peace in the former Zaire, but had been marred by an increase in violence, particularly in the lawless northeast and east.
The brutal five-year civil war from 1998 to 2003 in DRC - dubbed "Africa's World War" drew in six foreign armies and claimed more than three million lives yet did little to attract the attention of developed nations.
The United Nations Children's Fund estimated that the DRC had the world's largest concentration of child soldiers with up to 30 000 children either fighting or living with armed forces.