Canada played a large role in the push for drafting the Optional Protocol. Canada held workshops and consultations on strengthening the text of the draft. In addition, on my cluster map Canada and South Africa are the only identifiable government websites. The Canadian government and the Canadian International Development Agency move have special pages devoted to “Small Soldiers.”
In 1985 the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland proposed including an article on children in armed conflicts in the drafting of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Belgium, Peru and Senegal supported them (Heckel, 12). Later on Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela suggested raising the minimum age of participation in conflict to 18. At the time US, UK, Canada, Bangladesh and the U.S.S.R. opposed this amendment due to their continued recruitment of teenagers as young as 15 (Heckel, 14 and Webster, 238). After the CRC was passed, the Working Group on the Optional Protocol (to raise the age to 18) was composed of 54 states and its chairperson was Ambassador Nils Eliasson of Sweden.
Canada seems to have had the biggest role in the 1990s, but not in the 1980s. The Scandinavian countries supported by the South America countries seem to have played the largest roles in the 1980s.
Heckel, Heather. “Transnational Activism without the hegemon: The cases of child soldiers and child sexual exploitation.” (February 2005) unpublished manuscript
Webster, Timothy. "Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers." The George Washington International Law Review; 2007; 39,2
Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
The UN's involvement on the issue of Child Soldiers
UNICEF, the Committee on the Rights of the Child within the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, The Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict , and the UN Security Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict have been the most involved UN offices involved in the issue of Child Soldiers. Other groups have weighed in on the issue as well, including the UN Human Rights Sub-Commission on Conscientious Objection to Military Service and the UN Seminar on Child Labor. This is by no means considered an exhaustive list since the issue of child soldiers is so wide reaching it may have been mentioned briefly in many different agencies and offices within the UN.
As UN involvement has been extensive in the issue of child soldiers, I have developed a timeline highlighting important events in the campaign. This list is not exhaustive as UN involvement is so heavy it would be a prohibitively long timeline! It is meant to demonstrate when different agencies and offices became active, and in what capacities they have been involved. Please see the analysis following the timeline for my critique of the UN’s role in the agenda-setting process of child soldiers.
1959- UN adopts the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, but it offers no protection to child soldiers.
1979- United Nation’s International Year of the Child which inspires the UN to begin considering updat
ing the 1959 Declaration on the Rights of the Child (???)
1980-QUNO submits recommendations on child soldiers to the UN’s 36th session of the Commission on Human Rights
1983- The Human Rights Sub-Commission on Conscientious Objection to Military Service recommended that some kind of action be taken to diminish the use of child soldiers (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16) (from Heckel, 13).
1984- UNICEF hosts NGO workshops in Rome discussing child victims of armed combat (Heckel, 13).
1984- UNICEF conducts studies on the impact of war on children in Uganda and South Africa.
1985- UN Seminar on Child Labor reached the conclusion that child soldiering was a form of exploitative child labor (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16).
1985- UNICEF publishes “Children in Especially Difficult Circumstances” which includes a section condemning the use of child soldiers (E/ICEF/1985CRP.3 and E/CN.4/Sub.2/1990/43:16).
20 November 1989 – Convention on the Rights of the Child adopts by the UN General Assembly and is the “first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.” U.S. and Somalia are the only states who do not ratify. The Convention defines a child as anyone under 18 but does not specify this age for child soldiering. In Article 38 it reiterates the Geneva Convention’s 15 years of age and asks states to prioritize use of older soldiers.
September 1992- Committee on the Rights of the Child which monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child spends a whole day on “Children in Armed Conflicts” (CRC/C/10).
1993- Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends the adoption of an Optional Protocol to raise age of recruitment and service to 18
June 1993- World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, participants also called for an Optional Protocol.
1994- UN Commission on Human Rights establishes a “working group” to draft the Optional Protocol and they meet for the first time.
1994- UN announces its campaign to end the use of child soldiers (Heckel, 18).
March 1994- UN resolution 48/157 appoints Graca Machel to deliver a report on the status of children in armed conflict
1996- Graça Machel report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children comes out, and the UN secretary general appoints a new Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu
January 1996- the UN Human Rights Commission authorizes another Working Group which decides to create an informal drafting group to get the work done quicker. Pressure from U.S. prevents group from accomplishing much. (Heckel, 20)
1997- UNICEF and NGOs reach an agreement on goals for the child soldiers Optional Protocol (move age from 15 to 18) at Symposium on Child Soldiers in Cape Town (organized by NGOs) (Lorey 2001:10??? From Heckel, 19-20)
September 1997- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appoints Olara Otunnu as his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict.
1999- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1261 identifying children and armed conflict as an issue affecting international peace and security.
1999- UN work in Sierra Leone helps to bring about the Lomé Accords which are the first peace treaty to recognize the use of child soldiers. It also made provisions for their rehabilitation and reentry into society (Singer, 184).
May, November and December 1999- Canada hold workshops and consultations on strengthening the text of the draft of the Optional Protocol
May 25, 2000- After six year of complex negotiations, The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict is adopted by the UN General Assembly. It provides that states shall not compulsorily recruit persons under the age of 18.
June 2000- Optional Protocol opened for signatures and Canada is the first to sign.
2001- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1379 which urges U.N. member states to prosecute those who recruit and use children in war. It also requested the Secretary General to create a list of parties in armed conflict that violate international law on child soldiering.
2002- Secretary General generates list of offending parties and presents to Security Council.
2003- UN Security Council passes resolution 1460 calling on offending parties to “provide information on steps they have taken to halt their recruitment or use of children in armed conflict.”
2004- UN Security Council Resolution 1539 condemns lack of progress on implementation of Resolution 1460 and says that a violating party’s failure to comply may result in sanctions (mostly military arms). It also asked the Secretary-General to come up with a monitoring and reporting system.
July 2005- UN Security Council Resolution 1612 created a monitoring and reporting system and instituted the Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict.
Present- UN working group set up in Resolution 1612 continues to work but is plagued with conflicting interests and opinions. As far as I can tell no sanctions have been imposed, even though many offending parties have consistently violated international law (specifically LTTE in Sri Lanka). They spent the first half of 2008 working on internal procedure and working methods.
In what capacities has the UN been involved in this issue? Using the list of capacities suggested by Reinicke and Deng it seems that the UN has had a part in each role possible; convener, provider of a platform and “safe place,” social entrepreneur, norm entrepreneur, multilevel-network manager and capacity builder (Reinicke and Deng, 97). The UN brought governments into a conversation about child soldiering, with NGOs providing information and suggestions. This informal way of “bringing stakeholders together” helped to create “consensual knowledge-building (Reinicke and Deng, 97).”
The high profile leadership of the UN on this issue qualifies them as the most visible social entrepreneur on the issue of child soldiers. While QUNO and other smaller European NGOs were pushing hard for the child soldier issue to be put on the UN’s agenda, it was the CRC committee that provided the platform and space to make the debate public. In addition, the UN consistently has taken actions to promote a new norm in the area of child soldiers, making them norm entrepreneurs as well. The UN role as multilevel-network manager and capacity-builders has not been as prominent but should not be discounted. While I did not mention anything specific about financing projects, UNICEF has co-funded some projects (with USAID for example) on child soldier rehabilitation.
In terms of the diagnostic and prognostic framing, the UN had a role in both. Diagnostically different UN agencies have produced reports on the situation of child soldiers. NGOs , governments , and the media have also had a crucial role in diagnostic framing. The UN has taken the lead on prognostic framing for the issue of child soldiers, although governments (Canada, others) and NGOs (QUNO, INAGH, HRW) have supplied the UN with suggestions and have applied pressure.
Sources:
Heckel, Heather. “Transnational Activism without the hegemon: The cases of child soldiers and child sexual exploitation.” (February 2005) unpublished manuscript
Joachim, Jutta M. Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs: Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights. Georgetown University Press (2007), Washington D.C.
Reinicke, Wolfgang H. and Deng, Francis, et. al. Critical Choices: The United Nations, Networks, and the Future of Global Governance. International Development Research Centre. Better World Fund. United Nations Foundation (2000).
Singer, P.W. Children at War. Pantheon Books (2005): New York.
Snyder, Ross. "The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict." Human security and the new diplomacy / ed. by Rob McRae & Don Hubert (2001), p. 152-160
Webster, Timothy. "Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers." The George Washington International Law Review; 2007; 39,2
Monday, October 6, 2008
Media Involvement in the Issue of Child Soldiers
Examining how the media has covered the issue of child soldiers poses some major methodological restrictions. How can you search what CNN was covering in 1992? How do we know what NBS and ABC were doing specials on in 1984? Without a central repository for researching all types of media publications, I was limited in my search to LexisNexis of major publications and relying on what other researchers had reported. I limited my LexisNexis searches to three major U.S. sources- The New York Times, The Economist, and Newsweek. I am convinced by Ron, Ramos and Rodgers that The Economist and Newsweek are good measures of what news is reaching both the elite and non-elite public (at least as far as LexisNexis abilities go). I added the New York Times because I beleive (without evidence) that it may act as somewhat of a gatekeeper in the media world, letting other forms of media know what they should be researching and talking about. From the limited trends shown in the coverage these major news sources provide on the issue of child soldiers, in time and with careful analysis I may be able to draw some links to action in the child soldiers campaign.
It appears as though activists were successful in two basic ways. The first method is publishing reports on the issue of child soldiers; both the New York Times and The Economist wrote articles based on research done by the Quakers. Also it seems that letter to the editors may result in some extra coverage of the story. By far the biggest jump in coverage was when an international organization was debating the issue, lending some credence to the argument that catalytic events can be crucial for movement momentum.
I have two sources that talk about times when the media picked up the issue of child soldiers. As NGO advocacy built in the early 1980s around the drafting of the CRC, the Iran-Iraq war and NGO documentation of child soldiers in the conflict began to draw media attention (Heckel, 2005). Also, in the late 1990s there was a media push with pictures and statistics. Snyder reports that in 1998 and 1999 the media picked up the problem of war affected children and graphic and disturbing images of child soldiers from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Burma, Cambodia, etc., appear on TV and garner the public’s attention. Snyder doesn’t explain or reference this statement, I assume he was alive and aware at the time and observed it.
These two media upturns can somewhat be seen in my Lexis-Nexis searches but I am not entirely empirically convinced. There is some coverage in the New York Times of child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war, and The Economist does an article on it. The articles do pick up in frequency in 1998 and 1999. At this time you also start seeing the emotionally charged personal stories of former child soldiers, which may have been a push from the campaign/coalition.
In summary, it appears to me that media has not had a crucial role in getting the attention of NGOs and intergovernmental organizations (the issue already had their attention), but the media may indeed have had an impact on popular support for the issue. For example, an article in Newsweek is followed by multiple letters to the editor thanking Newsweek for printing an article on such an under-covered issue. It does not seem that media has played a harmful role, if it has played any role at all it would be helpful. I have no way to empirically say that media activism affected the progress of the issue of child soldiers. I don’t believe that success of the campaign was contingent upon the media, but I feel like I would need to develop a more thorough methodology for being certain of that. I also wish that I could track changes in funding to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, to see if donations went up significantly after major news coverage.
Following is my search methodology:
A LexisNexis search for “child soldier*” in the New York Times shows the first topically accurate article to be a letter to the editor in 1982 discussing child soldiers in Latin America. In 1983 they report the U.N. asking Iran to stop recruiting children. In 1986 they publish their first Section A (page 2) article on child soldiers in Uganda. In August 1988 the NYT has a short front page article on the global issue of child soldiers. The article seems to have been written after the Times received a report written by the London Friends World Committee (Quakers). That December there was a flurry of articles reporting on the child soldier’s debate during the convention on the rights of the child. On October 29, 1994 Lois Whitman as the new Director of the Children’s Rights Project at HRW has her letter to the editor published on child soldiers in Liberia. Eleven days later the NYT runs a 1132 word story on Child soldiers. In September 1995 there is another 1400+ word story on the front page about Liberia’s child soldiers.
In May 1996 another story on Liberia’s child soldiers is run, but in section 4. More big stories follow: November 1996, December 1997, July 5, 1998, January 1999, August 1999. Things pick up in 2000 as the optional protocol proceedings are published. More front page stories in 2000 and then onward. The issue seems to be consistently covered as a front page story or at least a big story in section A once a year from 1994-1998. 1999 sees two major stories, 2000 sees 3, 2001 has 2. Somehow this does not feel like the “media blitz” that my sources have suggested.
A LexisNexis search for “child soldier*” in The Economist shows on article on the Iran-Iraq war and child soldiers in September, 1983 (from our Geneva correspondent”). The issue is not discussed again until August 1995 (Sri Lanka’s child soldiers), followed by a July 1996 short report on child soldiers. One article is published in 1997 and one in 1998. Then there is a break until September 2003 when a HRW report on child soldiers in Columbia inspires The Economist to print their largest article yet on child soldiers (889 words). Since September 2003 there are no articles that have the issue of child soldiers as their main topic.
Newsweek searches on LexisNexis shows the first big story on child soldiers to be printed in an August 1995 Newsweek. July 2000 has another, July 2001 has one, and then in May 2002 Newsweek publishes a large story on child soldiers filled with touching testimonials from former child soldiers.
Sources:
Heckel, Heather. “Transnational Activism without the hegemon: The cases of child soldiers and child sexual exploitation.” (February 2005) unpublished manuscript
Snyder, Ross. "The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict." Human security and the new diplomacy / ed. by Rob McRae & Don Hubert (2001), p. 152-160
It appears as though activists were successful in two basic ways. The first method is publishing reports on the issue of child soldiers; both the New York Times and The Economist wrote articles based on research done by the Quakers. Also it seems that letter to the editors may result in some extra coverage of the story. By far the biggest jump in coverage was when an international organization was debating the issue, lending some credence to the argument that catalytic events can be crucial for movement momentum.
I have two sources that talk about times when the media picked up the issue of child soldiers. As NGO advocacy built in the early 1980s around the drafting of the CRC, the Iran-Iraq war and NGO documentation of child soldiers in the conflict began to draw media attention (Heckel, 2005). Also, in the late 1990s there was a media push with pictures and statistics. Snyder reports that in 1998 and 1999 the media picked up the problem of war affected children and graphic and disturbing images of child soldiers from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Burma, Cambodia, etc., appear on TV and garner the public’s attention. Snyder doesn’t explain or reference this statement, I assume he was alive and aware at the time and observed it.
These two media upturns can somewhat be seen in my Lexis-Nexis searches but I am not entirely empirically convinced. There is some coverage in the New York Times of child soldiers in the Iran-Iraq war, and The Economist does an article on it. The articles do pick up in frequency in 1998 and 1999. At this time you also start seeing the emotionally charged personal stories of former child soldiers, which may have been a push from the campaign/coalition.
In summary, it appears to me that media has not had a crucial role in getting the attention of NGOs and intergovernmental organizations (the issue already had their attention), but the media may indeed have had an impact on popular support for the issue. For example, an article in Newsweek is followed by multiple letters to the editor thanking Newsweek for printing an article on such an under-covered issue. It does not seem that media has played a harmful role, if it has played any role at all it would be helpful. I have no way to empirically say that media activism affected the progress of the issue of child soldiers. I don’t believe that success of the campaign was contingent upon the media, but I feel like I would need to develop a more thorough methodology for being certain of that. I also wish that I could track changes in funding to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, to see if donations went up significantly after major news coverage.
Following is my search methodology:
A LexisNexis search for “child soldier*” in the New York Times shows the first topically accurate article to be a letter to the editor in 1982 discussing child soldiers in Latin America. In 1983 they report the U.N. asking Iran to stop recruiting children. In 1986 they publish their first Section A (page 2) article on child soldiers in Uganda. In August 1988 the NYT has a short front page article on the global issue of child soldiers. The article seems to have been written after the Times received a report written by the London Friends World Committee (Quakers). That December there was a flurry of articles reporting on the child soldier’s debate during the convention on the rights of the child. On October 29, 1994 Lois Whitman as the new Director of the Children’s Rights Project at HRW has her letter to the editor published on child soldiers in Liberia. Eleven days later the NYT runs a 1132 word story on Child soldiers. In September 1995 there is another 1400+ word story on the front page about Liberia’s child soldiers.
In May 1996 another story on Liberia’s child soldiers is run, but in section 4. More big stories follow: November 1996, December 1997, July 5, 1998, January 1999, August 1999. Things pick up in 2000 as the optional protocol proceedings are published. More front page stories in 2000 and then onward. The issue seems to be consistently covered as a front page story or at least a big story in section A once a year from 1994-1998. 1999 sees two major stories, 2000 sees 3, 2001 has 2. Somehow this does not feel like the “media blitz” that my sources have suggested.
A LexisNexis search for “child soldier*” in The Economist shows on article on the Iran-Iraq war and child soldiers in September, 1983 (from our Geneva correspondent”). The issue is not discussed again until August 1995 (Sri Lanka’s child soldiers), followed by a July 1996 short report on child soldiers. One article is published in 1997 and one in 1998. Then there is a break until September 2003 when a HRW report on child soldiers in Columbia inspires The Economist to print their largest article yet on child soldiers (889 words). Since September 2003 there are no articles that have the issue of child soldiers as their main topic.
Newsweek searches on LexisNexis shows the first big story on child soldiers to be printed in an August 1995 Newsweek. July 2000 has another, July 2001 has one, and then in May 2002 Newsweek publishes a large story on child soldiers filled with touching testimonials from former child soldiers.
Sources:
Heckel, Heather. “Transnational Activism without the hegemon: The cases of child soldiers and child sexual exploitation.” (February 2005) unpublished manuscript
Snyder, Ross. "The Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict." Human security and the new diplomacy / ed. by Rob McRae & Don Hubert (2001), p. 152-160
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