GOMA, DR Congo , Over 2,000 children are still being used as soldiers by 27 armed groups in North Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo despite efforts by the United Nations Children’s Fund to remove them from the frontlines and return them to their homes. Between January and July, about 1,700 child soldiers were part of the UNICEF demobilisation and reintegration programme. But at the end of July, UNICEF condemned the worrying increase of child victims in the ongoing conflict that has rocked North Kivu since fighting broke out in May 2012 between the Congolese armed forces and the M23 rebels.
Basile Bashimbe is a legal expert on the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme for former child soldiers at Caritas Goma, a division of Caritas International – the federation of Catholic organsations working with international development. He believes that the presence of former child soldiers within the ranks of M23 is only one dimension of the problem. “Even though the DRC is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, our country is on the [U.N. child solider] ‘list of shame’ of armed forces and groups involved in recruiting and exploiting children,” Bashimbe said.
In a region where nationalist propaganda, ethnic claims, land disputes and minerals drive the war, “the militias use the children as a vulnerable and impressionable source of labour,” he elaborated.Justin Akili, who participated in drafting the DDR operational plan for the DRC in 2003, said that former child soldiers who are “unleashed” onto families that are frightened of them because of their past, receive one goat as a “family reintegration” donation. Child soldiers of school-going age also receive school supplies and fees to pursue their studies until they obtain their state certificate (Baccalaureate).
Basile Bashimbe is a legal expert on the Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) programme for former child soldiers at Caritas Goma, a division of Caritas International – the federation of Catholic organsations working with international development. He believes that the presence of former child soldiers within the ranks of M23 is only one dimension of the problem. “Even though the DRC is a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, our country is on the [U.N. child solider] ‘list of shame’ of armed forces and groups involved in recruiting and exploiting children,” Bashimbe said.
In a region where nationalist propaganda, ethnic claims, land disputes and minerals drive the war, “the militias use the children as a vulnerable and impressionable source of labour,” he elaborated.Justin Akili, who participated in drafting the DDR operational plan for the DRC in 2003, said that former child soldiers who are “unleashed” onto families that are frightened of them because of their past, receive one goat as a “family reintegration” donation. Child soldiers of school-going age also receive school supplies and fees to pursue their studies until they obtain their state certificate (Baccalaureate).
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