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Militias still recruiting kids
23/04/2004 19:28 - (SA)
Bukavu - Militias in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo continue to recruit hundreds of child soldiers in defiance of a national peace treaty, a UN disarmament programme and international law, a DRC human rights group said on Friday.
Raphael Wakenge Ngimbi, the co-ordinator of the Congolese Initiative for Justice and Peace, said the militias have so far refused to demobilise the thousands of child soldiers in their forces, apparently in an effort to collect cash.
"Thousands of children today are taken hostage by warlords in the militias, who utilised them during the war and continue to exploit them during this transitional period, despite the peace accord," Ngimbi said.
Both DRC and international aid groups estimate that 30 000 children were recruited as fighters during the civil war from 1998 to 2002. During the war, the rebel groups split into as many as six factions and, at the highest point, nine African armies were fighting in DRC.
Now that a peace agreement has been signed and a transitional government is in power, rebel fighters are supposed to be disarmed or included in the national army. Some small, local militias in eastern DRC have so far refused to co-operate.
US$13.50
Ngimbi said the new ministry defence has been paying militia members the equivalent of US$12.50, regardless of their age, discouraging demobilisation.
"It is this mediocre wage that is at the origin of the mass return of already demobilised, former child-soldiers to armed groups," Ngimbi said. "Others are even compelled by their former commanders in order to make their groups bigger in order to justify the lists that they submitted to the defence ministry."
A DRC army officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the defence ministry was aware of the problem, but was left no choice to pay the wages, which were part of the final peace agreement.
"The government is paying wages to registered troops as any self-respectable government pays its troops," he said.
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