Fostering terror: child soldier crisis in Uganda.

• Author: Talwar, Namrita
• Position: 10 Stories the World Should Hear More About

For the rebels in northern Uganda, children have become their killing machines. Some are as young as eight years old when the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) abduct and introduce them to the rebellion movement. Since the 18-year-old rebellion against the Government began, some 30,000 children have been abducted to work as soldiers and porters. Young girls have been made to serve as the "wives" of rebels and bear their children. In the past 18 months, 10,000 children have been abducted as a result of a Ugandan military offensive against the LRA.

To evade the rebels and escape attacks and killings, streams of children, often with their mothers, flee their homes to squalid and overcrowded camps. Some 40,000 "night commuters" sleep under verandas, in schools, hospital courtyards and bus parking lots. The number of internally displaced persons has almost tripled since 2002. Any economic strides made by Uganda, which revitalized its gross domestic product (GDP) growth to more than 8 per cent over the past three years, hangs loosely in the hands of the insurgency, threatening to undermine the country's progress. The unrest in the northern and eastern parts of Uganda has created the largest displaced populations.

In its continuing efforts to combat the growing menace of using children as soldiers, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 1539 (2004) on 22 April, recalling States' responsibilities to "end the impunity and to prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other egregious crimes penetrated against children." The resolution also calls upon parties to "prepare within three months concrete time-bound action plans to halt recruitment and use of children in violation of the international obligations applicable to them". Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the enlistment of children under 15 years of age or using them to participate actively in hostilities is classified as a war crime, while the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child requires States parties to set a minimum age of 18 for compulsory recruitment and participation in hostilities.

Although various advances have been made for the protection of children affected by armed conflict, particularly in the areas of advocacy, the resolution notes a lack of overall "progress on the ground", where parties to the conflict continue to violate relevant provisions of the international laws aimed at...