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