Fwd: Children and War

[Lori <lori at web4all.it>]

Date: 23 Oct 2002 23:20:54 -0000
From: "Eli Pariser, MoveOn.org" <moveon-help at list.moveon.org>
To: "Lori Matteucci Tubbs" <lori at web4all.it>
Subject: Children and War

CHILDREN AND WAR

Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Susan V. Thompson, ed.
http://susan.thompson at moveon.org

Read online or subscribe at:
http://www.peace.moveon.org/bulletin.php3#sub

 
CONTENTS

1. Introduction: Targeting Evil, Striking Innocents
2. Background: Children and War in General
3. How Will a New Gulf War Affect Iraqi Children?
4. Child Soldiers
5. War Trauma
6. Afghanistan and the Middle East
7. The United Nations
8. Resources for Kids and Adults
9. Credits
10. Get Involved
11. About the Bulletin

 
INTRODUCTION: TARGETING EVIL, STRIKING INNOCENTS
"Tragically, children are the new face of war."
-- Kati Marton, Chief Outreach Officer of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (UN)

One of the fundamental problems with war is that it always results in the deaths and suffering of innocent civilians. Children are particularly vulnerable to harm in any combat situation. In wars all over the world right now, children are being killed, maimed, orphaned, displaced, traumatized, starved, made into child soldiers, and even sold as commercial sex objects. Two million children have been killed in conflicts in the past ten years alone, with several millions more wounded and some 300,000 recruited as soldiers who serve in direct combat.

The worst part of this is that children generally have little or no control over what happens to them. They have almost no influence on international policy and politics. They have no opportunity to vote, little ability to mobilize, and no real way to tell their stories, unless compassionate adults take the time to listen and help. In a war, children are therefore punished for policies that they had nothing to do with.

There are some who believe that the suffering of children is an unfortunate but necessary means to the end of accomplishing larger goals. We challenge that: our children, all children, have the right to grow up in peace. The first step is to begin to listen to the stories of the world's children. There is no better way that we could begin than with the following letter, which MoveOn.org received from children in Yugoslavia in response to our campaign to stop a new war on Iraq.

Dear MoveOn and people of the world,

We are 25 teenagers and young people, the youth task force of the Yugoslav NGO, BEOSUPPORT, in Belgrade. The name of our task force is the BS Team. Your message regarding the possibility of air strikes on Iraq reached our adults, and was conveyed to us. Here is our answer, and we are sure we speak on behalf of 28,000 citizens who support us in our campaign for a National Plan against the exploitation of children. All were bombed with us.

In 1999 we suffered the biggest air campaign in history. Our country was punished because we had a dictator who made a huge harm to many innocents around us but first turned our lifes in disaster and misery. Our country is full of graves and handicapped, poor and isolated. As a solution, 19 countries for 78 days sent up to 900 planes daily upon us, targeting the evil, striking the innocents. Bombs did not remove it, we did. Now, how does it look in reality, being bombed? The awful sound of the warning signal, then darkness no one can imagine, then long frightening silence. The most awful were the nights. At one moment, the silence would be broken by the unanimous barking of many many thousands of terrified dogs, who heard something we could not. But we knew the planes were approaching. In some minutes, the explosions, huge and terrifying would start, the walls would tremble, and we were shaking in darkness awaiting whether we would stay alive, or would die as collateral damage. After the ending signal, we would first check by phone whether our relatives in other parts of the city are alive, and then we would look at the fire enlighting the sky. The city was burning. At the end, coffins and tombs, tears and ruins, no bridges for us. During all that time, the evil who victimised us and others was safe. Dictators and families and friends have bunkers at home, villas abroad, and risk nothing. Now they are well and rich. Being in prison on fair trial is great, compared to death and wheel chair !!! [Editor's note: This is a reference to former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, who is being tried for war crimes and crimes against humanity.]

While we suffer diseases, our country is contaminated. The peacekeepers, young as us, are risking their health in Kosovo same as we do. Now we face the threat of the same fate for Iraq and we want to tell you and all that no child and no person at all should be unhappy twice, victimised by having an unacceptable government, and also by global solutions to move away that government. We are aware of the horrors of terrorism, we moan all the victims of 11th September, we, more than many, understand the Americans. We share the experience of fear and death and ruins, and we want the terrorism stopped. We also want a life free of threat of poisoning and bombing planes. But air strikes on countries are not a solution. THEY STRIKE INNOCENTS. We trust democracy, we want a better world but we urge democracy to find solutions others than one we were subjected to. We support all the Americans who don't want innocents to be victimised as a solution and join them as victims. We support all the people who feels same. We entrust you this message, our plea for a wise solution, democracy must find one. And we are confident you will manage to convey this voice of bombed children in favour of unknown Iraqi friends in jeopardy to any place where it is appropriate. We are here, very proud for the opportunity to join efforts for a better world.

Thank you.

On behalf of BS TEAM and all BEOSUPPORT.
Zorka Kolundzija 17 years, Severin Jolovic 19, Vuk Palavestra 13.

Editor's note: BEOSUPPORT is a registered Yugoslavian NGO, with a mission to help children and youth at risk of exploitation, especially sexual exploitation. Since war often leads to this exploitation, BEOSUPPORT is also very concerned with issues of war and peace. The BS Team is a task force of teenagers who are working to create a National Plan to address the commercial sexual exploitation of children in Yugoslavia.

 
BACKGROUND: CHILDREN AND WAR IN GENERAL
This is an excellent summary of how armed conflict affects children, including how abuses of children continue to rise even with new international laws and conventions. Includes pictures.
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=176

"Impact of Armed Conflict on Children" is a fairly long but compelling report that was jointly created by UNICEF and the UN as a whole. The report overviews the many ways in which children are affected by war, whether as victims or as child soldiers, and includes recommendations about how to solve these problems. According to the report, "more and more of the world is being sucked into a space in which children are slaughtered, raped, and maimed; a space in which children are exploited as soldiers; a space in which children are starved and exposed to extreme brutality. Such unregulated terror and violence speak of deliberate victimization. There are few further depths to which humanity can sink."
http://www.unicef.org/graca/

 
HOW WILL A NEW GULF WAR AFFECT IRAQI CHILDREN?
To answer this question, we only have to ask how the previous Gulf War and the resulting sanctions have already affected Iraqi children.

Children in Iraq have already suffered through one war and over a decade of harsh sanctions. Despite the fact that these actions were meant to help free them from the rule of Saddam Hussein, the conditions in which they live have become only more miserable as a result of these measures. Now they face a new threat in the form of another war.
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=177

Over 500,000 children have died as a result of the sanctions against Iraq. This compelling article tells the story of a doctor who has the knowledge to treat the leukemia that his young patients are suffering from, but due to the sanctions, the equipment and medicine that he needs are unavailable. Child mortality rates are high, and fewer children are going to school. Yet the world remains focused on Saddam Hussein and not this humanitarian tragedy.
http://gbgm-umc.org/Response/articles/iraq.html

Children who weren't even born at the time of the Gulf War are still suffering from its effects. Children born in Iraq and the children of soldiers from the US and Britain are affected by a high rate of congenital deformities. Such deformities have jumped since the first Gulf War, a fact which many blame on the use of ammunition coated with depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive substance. Other possibilities include environmental pollution also originating from the Gulf War. Whatever the cause, the effect is tragic--babies are being born with Thalidomide-type deformities and other congenital problems such as heart and lung defects and Down's syndrome. Late miscarriages also seem to be far more common.
http://www.oppression.org/middleeast/children_of_iraq.html

 
CHILD SOLDIERS
Human Rights Watch has compiled some basic facts (in point form) about child soldiers. Child soldiers range in age from 17 to as young as 8 (although the use of even younger children has been reported elsewhere). Girls are also often used as child soldiers, and may suffer the further pain of rape or being given to a military commander as a "wife."
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/facts.htm

The Defense Monitor offers an excellent summary of the problem of child soldiers around the world. Child soldiers are relatively new in history, and are being used in increasing numbers, partially due to the increasing availability of lightweight weapons. The largest problem with recording and preventing their use is the fact that they are relatively invisible. They are generally in areas far from media scrutiny, they are not always obviously children once they hit their teens, and their deaths and/or abandonment on the battlefield are largely undocumented. The horrific things that child soldiers witness, often intentionally on the part of their superiors in order to "harden" them, have lasting psychological effects. Combined with injuries sustained in battle, experience as a child soldier can make it next to impossible for these kids to grow up and participate in a "normal" life or society. The article includes a discussion of related international laws, and a map showing the 33 areas around the world where children are currently involved in combat.
http://www.cdi.org/dm/1997/issue4/

Ishmael, a former child soldier, told a UN special session panel discussion about his experiences in spring of this year. According to Ishmael, he was recruited by being told that he could take revenge on the people who killed his family. He fought for three years, and as he fought, he lost "that human thing that makes you care for other people." He has since been rehabilitated, and is committed to preventing others from going through the same pain he has.
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=178

 
WAR TRAUMA
The war isn't over when the war is over. Psychological effects of the war live on -- especially for traumatized children. This article focuses on Mozambique, but could just as well be applied to any armed conflict.
http://www.oneworld.org/child_rights/maputo_war.html

A study of children in Sarajevo, Angola, and Rwanda, conducted by UNICEF, found that most children had been present for shelling or shooting, with over half having been shot at by snipers. The article briefly explains the symptoms and long-term effects of such trauma, which will not simply heal over time but need active treatment.
http://www.unicef.org/sowc96/7trauma.htm

This article is supposed to be about talking to your kids about the threat of terrorism and biological attack. While it doesn't exactly answer those questions in any really specific way, it does provide an excellent brief summary of the psychological findings on war and trauma, and lists the various relevant psychological studies. According to the article, "There is now a substantial body of literature documenting the immediate and long-term psychological effects of war-related violence on children. The research has studied both those who have been direct victims of war and terrorism, as well as the indirect victims and even potential victims. Accumulating evidence shows that war experiences can damage the psychosocial development of young children and their expectations regarding their future lives. Being separated from their families, seeing armed combat, having family members injured or killed, and being attacked have left profound and enduring psychological wounds on children. Both male and female adolescents under the extreme threat of war-related violence report high levels of psychological distress. Many victims of war related-violence develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)."
http://www.fema.gov/kids/terrism.htm

This is an excellent fact sheet on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, which provides information on the definition, development, symptoms, and treatment of the disorder.
http://www.ncptsd.org/facts/general/fs_what_is_ptsd.html

 
AFGHANISTAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST
The Children of War is an organization that provides aid to children and families in Afghanistan. Despite a large outpouring of support last year, donations have now all but dried up, due to the mistaken impression that the international community has taken care of the humanitarian crisis there. In truth, the majority of the pledges of support are yet to be received, and the people of Afghanistan are facing deplorable conditions.
http://www.thechildrenofwar.org

Cluster bombs left over from the war on Afghanistan continue to threaten the lives of Afghan civilians of all ages.
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=179

According to a recent Amnesty International (AI) report, the new intifada and the Israeli response to it have targeted children in an "unprecedented" way. AI reports that "[i]n the period from 29 September 2000 to the end of August 2002, some 1700 Palestinians, including more than 250 children, were killed, and more than 580 Israelis, most of them civilians and including 72 children, were killed." The high child death rate has led Amnesty to conclude that Israeli authorities, Palestinian armed groups, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have all failed to "comply with the obligations and safeguards set down in international human rights and humanitarian law." The brief summary of the report is followed by a link to the report itself.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=1040&CategoryId=8

The Bereaved Families Forum, also referred to as Parent's Circle, is an organization of 190 bereaved Israeli parents, Palestinian and Jews, who lost their children during army service or in an act of terrorism. The organization recently set up a free service to encourage Israelis and Palestinians to talk to each other on the telephone. This is an interview with the founder, a man whose son was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group, and who says that his revenge is making peace.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14326

Palestinian children also have to contend with severe malnutrition as a result of the conditions imposed on them by the Israeli government. A USAID funded nutritional assessment has found that malnutrition rates of Palestinian children under the age of five have reached emergency levels. This article contends that the malnutrition of these children is the result of Israeli-imposed curfews, checkpoints, and policies of collective punishment, which are in direct violation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=958&CategoryId=8

According to Dr. Annie Higgins of the University of Chicago, Israeli soldiers enforce a prohibition on school attendance in the Jenin refugee camp by shooting into classrooms. Her outrage at this fact is palpable.
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article774.shtml

Starhawk, an activist and author, writes about her experiences in the Balata refugee camp after all the men had been rounded up. In this community of women and children, she witnesses a child whose sleep is broken by bombs and gunshots, a mother who must try and create a home for her coming baby in the midst of destruction, and a grandmother punished for her hopeful singing.
http://www.themightyorgan.com/features_starhawk.html

Juman is an 11-year-old Palestinian girl who recently spoke at a press conference in Geneva, Switzerland. The link below is to an article in Arabic which describes the conference; the girl in the article is Juman. For our English speaking readers, I have reprinted Juman's story "How I lost my best friend" here. This story came to us from one of our volunteers, who knows Juman.

Before the intifada started, my best friend Zeina came to school from Jerusalem to Ramallah every day and sometimes she came to my house to stay overnight. We used to have a lot of fun.

When the intifada started, she began to come to school late every day, because she had to cross the checkpoint on her way to school. That was very dangerous and took forever.

After the Summer holiday, she didn’t come back to school and also didn’t come to stay over night in my house, but I didn’t lose hope, so we talked on the phone a lot.

One day she invited me to her birthday party and because crossing the checkpoint was very difficult I decided to stay overnight. We wanted to camp in her garden. Her house is near an Israeli army camp. I was afraid of shelling because the helicopters were above us and that reminded me of the shelling in Ramallah. I was very scared and went to sleep inside. I went home the next day and only saw her once since that day.

This is my story about how I lost my best friend.
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=180

 
THE UNITED NATIONS
Olara Ottunu, UN representative for children and armed conflict, participated in a BBC forum this year, and answered questions both about how children are affected by conflict around the world, and how the UN is responding. You can either watch the recorded forum or read the transcript as it is presented here. According to the opening statistics presented as part of the forum, "[o]ver the past decade, two million children were killed, six million seriously injured, one million orphaned and 20 million children displaced by conflict situations. More than 300,000 young persons under the age of 18 are currently being exploited as child soldiers and sex slaves in as many as 30 areas of conflict around the world, despite a United Nations treaty banning such exploitation."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/forum/1975715.stm

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of 20 November 1989, with entry into force 2 September 1990, in accordance with article 49. The full text is provided here, with links to the status of ratifications, declarations and reservations, and the Committee on the Rights of the Child.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (the child soldier protocol) on the involvement of children in armed conflicts was adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution A/RES/54/263 of 25 May 2000, and entered into force on 12 February 2002.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/crc/treaties/opac.htm

Human Rights Watch explains the above optional protocol in more understandable terms. Basically, "it establishes eighteen as the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities, for compulsory recruitment, and for any recruitment or use in hostilities by non-governmental armed groups." Other key provisions of the protocol are overviewed as well.
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/crp/protocol.htm

The US ratified the above protocol in June, 2002. At the time of the US ratification, the protocol had been signed by 109 governments and ratified by 33.
http://hrw.org/press/2002/06/crd0619.htm

 
PEACE RESOURCES FOR KIDS AND ADULTS
If you have questions about how to talk to your children about the WTC attacks, the war on Afghanistan, and the war on Iraq, this is an excellent guide which explains how to discuss violence and other complex world issues. It is written in an easy-to-use question and answer format. The main emphasis of this guide is to focus on your child's opinions, rather than your own, while correcting any obvious misinformation and emphasizing how important it is to respect the opinions of others.
http://www.esrnational.org/guide.htm#scaremore

Medecins du Monde (UK) has an excellent website set up for children. It is meant to help explain the work that the organization does around the world, but is worthwhile whether or not you are interested in the organization, since it explains what war is and how it affects children in easily understood terms. Children should have no difficulty navigating the site, and the illustrations are colorful and appealing while still not shrinking from the difficult subject matter. The site covers such subjects as refugees, war trauma, child soldiers, and poverty. It also includes five short testimonies from children around the world, and a section that explains what kids can do to help.
http://www.medecinsdumonde.co.uk/kids/index.html

The Eugene Peace Academy is the first public peace academy in the US. The academy offers "a fully integrated environmental, relational and creative arts curriculum grounded in contemporary events, community needs and planetary concerns." In regards to issues of war and peace, the students of the academy "will come to understand the root and resolution of conflict through active skill building and practice of non-violent communication skills." The school will initially open for grades K - 8.
http://eugenepeaceacademy.org

Code Pink: Women's Pre-emptive Strike for Peace is a campaign calling on the women of the world to rise up and oppose a new attack on Iraq. Why? Because "[w]omen have been the guardians of life-not because we are better or purer or more innately nurturing than men, but because the men have busied themselves making war. Because of our responsibility to the next generation, because of our own love for our families and communities and this country that we are a part of, we understand the love of a mother in Iraq for her children, and the driving desire of that child for life. "
http://peace.moveon.org/r2.php3?r=181

Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT) is a network of individuals and NGOs across Canada and around the world working to oppose the arms trade. COAT is offering free sample copies of their most recent magazine issue, on the topic of "Real Reasons for the Invasion of Iraq," to Canadian residents (it can be purchased by any non-Canadian residents who are interested). For a brief blurb about the issue and how to order, visit the following link:
http://www.flora.org/coat/forum/1412

 
CREDITS
Research team:
Joanne Comito
Anna Gavula
Keiko Hatch
Maha Mikhail
Vicki Nikolaidis
Ben Spencer
Ora Szekely
Sharon Winn

Proofreading team:
David Taub Bancroft
Madlyn Bynum
Carol Brewster
Melinda Coyle
Nancy Evans
Anne Haehl
Mary Kim
Dagmara Meijers-Troller
Alfred K. Weber

 
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