Thursday, February 7, 2013

Children in Conflict

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/05/us-act-protect-children-conflict


The United Nation’s committee on the Rights of Children have urged the United States make more of an effort to ensure the rights of children in conflict.  A recent report has shown that the United States has breached the laws as found in a convention in 2002 that was ratified by the United Nations.  This includes the killing of civilian children, being tortured, using child soldiers, assisting those using child soldiers, and handing children to other governments that may torture children.  The United States have killed many children in their conflicts.  They have also detained children with adults so that they have no special education or the right to special needs that children have.
The United States does have the Child Soldiers Prevention Act which was adopted in 2008.  This simple law says that the United States cannot assist governments using child soldiers.  This has been broken by the fact that the president has made exceptions to this by signing special wavers.  The countries that have this waiver with child soldiers include Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Libya, South Sudan, Sudan, and Yemen.
I think this is absolutely disgusting.  The United States should not be signing waivers to continue to assist militarily to those using child soldiers.  Child soldiers in general should never be used under any circumstances and to think that the United Sates is assisting those who use them is not okay in any way.  There should be more of an effort to help children in areas of conflict including the help of child soldiers and those who have been displaced from their homes because of conflict.  This is a very urgent problem that is happening right now and needs to be fixed.

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