NGOs and Child soldiers

NGOS played a very public role in the issue of child soldiers in the 1990s, but they were active as well in the 1980s. In fact the original social entrepreneurs for the issues of child soldiers were individuals from an NGO.

A concern for child soldiers may have started in NGOs as early as 1979 during the International Year of the Child. The first advocacy workers, or the "social entrepreneurs" were Dorothea Woods and Martin McPherson of the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) in Geneva. These two pushed the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) to do more research and advocacy work for child soldiers during their triennial meeting in 1979. The FWCC drafted a resolution which Woods submitted to the UN Commission on Human Rights. The resolution asked for the Commission to include section on child soldiers in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In 1983, Defense for Children International (DCI) helped to organize an NGO group, INAHG (Informal NGO Ad Hoc Group) to try and create a united NGO front for participating in the drafting process of the CRC (Heckel, 11). Since there are no formal ways for NGOs to participate in UN deliberation this traditionally is a difficult hurdle to overcome. However, Adam Lopatka was the chair of the UN Working Group of the Drafting of the CRC and he began the practice of accepting NGO texts and drafts as part of the drafting process (Heckel, 11).

When beginning to debate the CRC the UN Working Group used a draft provided by the Polish government that was very similar to the 1959 Child Rights Declaration (Heckel, 11). It lacked references to child soldiers and for the first five years the issue was not added (primarily due to the U.S. labeling it as a humanitarian law issue). INAHG submitted an NGO-version of the CRC to the Working Group and participating nations that included recommendations about child soldiers, the following year some nations suggested the addition (Heckel,11). After the Working Group decided to include the issue of child soldiers, the NGO groups started to push for raising the accept age of recruitment to 18 (from 15) (Heckel, 13).

QUNO and Defense for Children International were instrumental in these early actions that got child soldiers on the global agenda.

The Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) is not an official part of the UN, but enjoys consultative status with the UN and was an instrumental NGO that helped bring attention to the issue of child soldiers.

Were major NGO actors really prominent in the accomplishment of agenda-setting and global norm changes? Small NGOs, the UN and governments played a very large role in putting child soldiers on the agenda, with the major (HRW, the Coalition, etc.) NGO action coming on the scene after government players were already working on the issue. Apparently in 1989 when the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and failed to raise the age of military recruitment and participation to 18 “a number of governments” were disappointed (Snyder, 153). In fact already “there was considerable divisiveness on this issue. (Snyder, 153).

The Committee on the Rights of the Child was created to monitor the implementation of the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. In 1993 they recommended the adoption of an Optional Protocol to raise the age of recruitment and service to 18 years old. In addition, the World Conference on Human Rights in the same year (held in Vienna) also called for an Optional Protocol. In 1994 the UN Commission on Human Rights established a “working group” to draft the Optional Protocol, and the group began meeting. In the same year we find our first NGO actor taking the scene- Human Rights Watch.

In 1994 Human Rights Watch established their “Children’s Rights Project” with Lois Whitman as director. In that year Lois Whitman pens a letter to the editor of the New York Times condemning child soldier use in Liberia and calling for the international community to pressure “government and rebel forces” to stop (Whitman, 1994). HRW also begins publishing their first of many reports on child soldiers, 1994’s focus on Sudan.

Also in 1994 UN resolution 48/157 appoints Graca Machel to deliver a report on the status of children in armed conflict. The report comes out in 1996. In May/June of 1998 The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was formed with Human Rights Watch serving as the head of the steering committee. Other founding members include Amnesty International, International Federation Terre des homes, International Save the Children Alliance, Jesuit Refugee Service, and the Quaker United Nations Office-Geneva.

From this point on we have ever increasing governmental and NGO action in the child soldiers area, with networks developing and groups working hard to first pass the Optional Protocol (2000) and then to encourage the UN to enforce it.

Why did Human Rights Watch become involved with the issue of child soldiers in 1994? Why weren’t more NGOs engaged in this topic earlier? I am not aware of any NGOs that advocated for the issue of child soldiers prior to HRW picking it up in 1994, but that does not mean that they didn’t exist. It does mean that they weren’t loud enough to still be in the literature.

It seems as though true discussion on the Optional Protocol began in 1988-1989 when the UN was debating the details of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I do not know what countries were pushing for a higher age limit for military recruitment and engagement, but I imagine included the country with the highest profile of advocacy: Canada. In this way one could argue that Canada and the other countries who pressed the issue and later called for development of the Optional Protocol were the political entrepreneurs. Many countries were willing to have the age moved to 18, but the United States was a powerful holdout. If the age of recruitment was raised to 18, the U.S. Military might not be able to recruit in high schools (among other reasons). The protesting countries called for work on the Optional Protocol in defiance of U.S. wishes.

These nations push for the working group on the Optional Protocol, and for the Graca Machel report. Meanwhile . . . Human Rights Watch shows up. I don’t believe that Lois Whitman or Human Rights Watch were the political entrepreneurs; the issue was already on the agenda. They could, however, be considered the “gatekeeper” who got the issue of “child soldiers” into the NGO arena. After HRW adopted the issue, other NGOs got on board, culminating in a band-wagon effect of the Coalition forming, and many smaller NGOs popping up. HRW was clearly key in the “adoption” of the issue into the NGO world.

I believe that HRW’s adoption of the child soldiers issue in 1994 very clearly illustrates a number of arguments made by Clifford Bob in “The Marketing of Rebellion.” It seems very clear at this point in time that many governments are already working hard pushing for the issue of child soldiers. Because of this the long-term risks of support were low, and potential benefits were great. Bob suggests that NGOs spend a lot of time considering whether supporting specific movements will be worthwhile to them or not. By 1994, it should have been clear to Human Rights Watch that “child soldiers” was going to be a winning cause that would likely lead to policy change. It is easy to get behind a winning cause. In this way perhaps HRW was behaving as celebrities might- selecting causes based on their probability of success.

This pattern sort of follows the suggested pattern of a local NGO looking for help from big NGOs who adopt the issue and then work towards getting governments to pay attention and create policy change. Except in the example of child soldiers, small NGOs worked together to change action at the U.N. Gatekeeper NGOs got involved after the fact. Here we start with governments and then add the big NGOs into the mix. As far as I can tell there were no NGO detractors from the “child soldiers” cause, although that does not refute their existence, only their ability to sustain in the literature.

Bob, Clifford. “The Marketing of Rebellion: Insurgents, Media, and International Activism.” New York: Cambridge, 2005.

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

Whitman, Lois. “Liberia’s Civil War Takes Toll on Children.” The New York Times October 29, 1994. Section 1; Page 18; Column 3; Editorial Desk

Celebrity Involvement in the issue of Child Soldiers

(Note: I had significant difficulties with formatting in this blog, so please excuse the bold/italicized/double-spaced text. Also the random lines.)

A time line, followed by an analysis.

2003- Emma Thompson adopts a former child soldier from Rwanda.

February 2003- Michael Douglas visits Sierra Leone as Hope Messenger of Peace with UN. Douglas creates a TV series documentary with the UN called, “What’s going on? Child Soldiers in Serra Leone” which airs on Showtime. The United States Institute of Peace hosts a special screening of it on October 2, 2003.

2005 (?)- John Amos begins working with World Vision as their celebrity activist on Child Soldiers and Ending the war in Northern Uganda.

December 2006 – The movie “Blood Diamond” is released. It deals with conflict diamonds and graphically portrayed child soldiers. Leonardo DiCaprio was a driving force behind the movie. He and his co-star Djimon Sounsou talk about the issue of child soldiers.

June 30, 2006 – During a UN conference in New York, Nicholas Cage pledges $2 million to assist former child soldiers.

February 2007- Ishmael Beah’s autobiographical novel “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” is published. The previously unknown Ishmael becomes a kind of minor celebrity as he visits talk shows and his book is added to Starbuck’s retail shelves.

May 2008 – Ben Affleck visited with former child soldiers. He was participating in Save the Children's "Rewrite the Future" global campaign.

Analysis: My search for celebrity involvement included searching the web (using google.com), following links, searching JSTOR and searching Lexis-Nexus Academic for relevant press items. While previous to 2003 there were some press articles linking some less-well known celebrity to an issue that is partly linked to child soldiers (war in Uganda), the above examples are the most clear that I could find.

I think it is interesting that celebrity involvement in this issue doesn't really seem to "kick-off" until 2003, three years after the Optional Protocol was adopted. The main work of Human Rights Watch and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers does not seem to have included using celebrities for their purposes. In addition, before I began research I personally knew of no one celebrity who was involved in the issue of child soldiers. I was aware, however, of celebrities who are involved in different campaigns, such as poverty, and AIDs/Africa. The celebrities who are involved with the issue of child soldiers have not maintained a particularly high-profile involvement, unlike Bono or Angelina Jolie.

Celebrities who have been involved, such as Michael Douglas, Nicholas Cage and Emma Thompson, seemed to have mostly worked for the purpose of increasing awareness of the issue of Child Soldiers. Ishmael Beah was basically turned into a minor celebrity for the purposes of increasing awareness. As celebrities become more involved it is possible that this will help the campaign to really "take-off" and accomplish more, more quickly. It does not seem, however, that celebrities were crucial in the Child Soldiers campaign previous to 2003. Global norms were already starting to change in 2002 when Burma denied use of child soldiers. It seems as though celebrities have become active only in the stages of Global Norm Changes, Policy Changes and Policy Implementation, which are all at the end of the spectrum on our theoretical model. The only significant conclusion that I am able to tentatively draw is that celebrities were not crucial to the development of the Child Soldiers campaign, and may or may not be helpful to the future of the campaign.

Child Soldiers on the Global Agenda

September 21, 2008 UPDATE

After class discussion, I came to have a better understanding of how to tell whether or not global norms have changed for an issue. If countries have some kind of identifiable feelings of shame (that they didn't have before) with regard to the issue, then the norms are changing. For example, a state might try to hide their use of child soldiers, or justify it. The feelings and openness levels are changing . . . a stigma is applied, even if behavior is not actually changed.

As early as 2002 Burma was denying the use of child soldiers (even thought this was clearly not true).

In 2007 Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Sudan and Somalia were some of 58 countries that approved the "Paris Commitments" which commits them to ending child soldiering and recruiting. Of course, approving this pledge may not actually change any behaivior, but these states are interested in appearing as if they are capitulating which suggests serious norm changes.

I will continue searching the internet looking for other such examples.

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The issue of child soldiers is on the global agenda, and some political change has already been achieved. A campaign led by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (which includes such major international human rights and humanitarian organizations as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Save the Children, and others) successfully negotiated the adoption of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child which raises the age of compulsory recruitment to 18, and the age of voluntary recruitment to 16. Please read through the “timeline” blog entry below for an overview of legislation and activism on the child soldiers issue. This timeline is a work in progress and I hope to develop it as my research continues. For now it will provide you with a framework to understand the discussion.

In class we created our own “global agenda-cycle” which incorporates ideas from all of our readings on TANs (transnational advocacy networks) and agenda setting. We came up with general a general structure for how a “problem” turns into political change:

Social/Political Conditions --> Problem Definition --> Issue Definition --> Issue Adoption --> Advocacy/Campaign --> New Global Norms --> Political Change

I argue that Child Soldiers is concurrently in the New Global Norms and Political Change stages of the global agenda-cycle. Extensive campaigns, coalitions and advocacy in the 1990s led to political changes in the late 1990s and the early 2000s. While political change has come about (namely the raising of the age of compulsory recruitment from 15 to 18), the behavior of many groups using child soldiers has not changed. In addition, there has been little enforcement of the new policies adopted. Keck and Sikkink describe the way advocacy creates new global norms as such, “When a state recognizes the legitimacy of international interventions and changes its domestic behavior in response to international pressure, it reconstitutes the relationship between the state, its citizens, and international actors (K&S, 37).” If we accept this as the way that global norms change, and we use “state” interchangeably with parties participating in conflicts, then we can see that global norms are in the process of changing for the issue of Child Soldiers.

Child Soldiers began to be prominent in the 1990s as the UN and NGOs picked up the cause and began to try and negotiate what age would define a “child” soldier. This led to changes in international law, and to a global norm shift. The Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court now defines conscription of children under the age of 15 into direct participation in hostility as a crime. The Optional Protocol has been adopted. Does this mean that the global norms have changed? Have states changed their domestic behavior? Unfortunately the UN Security Council is still scrambling to pass resolutions that will try to monitor continued child soldiering, because not every state has changed its behavior. New Global Norms are still being sought after and enacted, and it may be awhile before things have truly changed.

How salient is the issue of child soldiers? On the cluster map of link connections (shown below) of the Child Soldiers network, the South African Government website has a link in the network but no other governments show up. Compared with the AIDs/HIV cluster map which has at least 4 major governments showing up on the link map, this is a significantly lower figure. Governments are not linking to the child soldier campaign, so clearly domestic behavior has not changed as much as with regard to AIDs/HIV. I would argue that this makes the issues of Child Soldiers slightly less salient than AIDs/HIV and other issues (for example, those that are on the UN’s list of Millennium Goals). However, the progress and importance of the child soldier issue is quite high and is focused on quite prominently in the Children and Armed Conflict category. The link network is dense, and the advocacy network is active and involved.

As I stated in my comment on our CIVIC blog I believe that CIVIC is approaching the Issue Adoption stage, but needs to refine its Problem and Issue Definitions. Luckily issues do not appear to need to follow a linear path, and re-framing can be a constant. At the moment the salience of the issue of “child soldiers” is much higher than that of amends to civilians or civilians in conflict more generally. CIVIC is much earlier in the process and their issue has not had the chance to gain such renown.

Child Soldiers on the Agenda- a Timeline

Time line of The Rise of Child Soldiers as an Issue on the Global Agenda (a work in progress)

-1949- Additional Protocols I and II of the four Geneva Conventions set the age at 15 for involvement in armed conflict

-1977- Additional Protocols to the four Geneva Conventions derive their relevant articles from the 1949 articles

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.

1990- The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child is adopted by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) but does not come into force until 1999. It has a straight “over-18” approach.

1993- Committee on the Rights of the Child which monitors implementation of the Convention 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- Human Rights Watch establishes their "Children's Rights Project" with Lois Whitman as director. Lois Whitman has a letter published in the NYTimes about child soldiers, and HRW begins publishing reports on Child Soldiering.

1994- Cohn and Goodwin-Gill publish an important book “Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict.” Also Human Rights Watch begins publishing reports on child soldiers in Africa.

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

1998- Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines conscription of children under the age of 15 into direct participation in hostility as a crime.

1998-1999- The media picks up the problem of war affected children. Graphic and disturbing images of child soldiers from Uganda, Sierra Leone, Burma, Cambodia, etc., are on TV and garner the public’s attention.

May-June 1998 – The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was formed. The Steering Committee has changed a bit but now includes: Amnesty International, Defence for Children International, Human Rights Watch (chair), International Federation Terre des Hommes, International Save the Children Alliance, Jesuit Refugee Service, and the Quaker United Nations Office-Geneva. It maintains active links with UNICEF, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the International labour Organization.

1999- The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers organizes high profile regional conferences in Mozambique, Uruguay and Germany.

1999- The UN Security Council passes Resolution 1261 identifying children and armed conflict as an issue affecting international peace and security.

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

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.”

2005-2006- continued UN Security Council resolutions create monitoring and reporting system, and an independent review system.

Additional sources:

Webster, Timothy. "Babes with Arms: International Law and Child Soldiers." The George Washington International Law Review; 2007; 39,2

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