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Press Summary
"The most important meaning of this Nobel award is the solemn recognition that the welfare of today's children is inseparably linked with the peace of tomorrow's world." -- Henry R. Labouisse, Executive Director of UNICEF (1965-1979), in his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965 for UNICEF.
Children have always been caught up in warfare, but the report says that recent developments have heightened the dangers, as more civilians than soldiers, particularly children, have increasingly come to suffer the effects of war. In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, civilians accounted for approximately 50 per cent of deaths. The contrast becomes progressively starker: in World War I, civilians accounted for 14 per cent of victims, by World War II it was close to 70 per cent, and by 1990 it was almost 90 per cent.
This is partly the result of technological developments and the extension of aerial bombardment. But a further reason is that most contemporary wars are not between States but within them. Battles are fought from street to street, and distinctions between combatant and non-combatant rapidly disappear. The report also points out that children and families are not just getting caught in the crossfire, they are also specific targets. Today's conflicts are often bound up with ethnic differences, and in these circumstances warring groups can be made to see any member of the other group as a present or future enemy. As one political commentator expressed it in a 1994 radio broadcast before violence erupted in Rwanda: "To kill the big rats, you have to kill the little rats."
The report also says that more children are being recruited as fighting soldiers, estimating that recently, thousands of children under the age of 16 have fought in wars in 25 countries. In 1988 alone, they numbered as many as 200,000. One of the main reasons for this increase is that light weapons now enable children to be proficient killers. An AK-47 rifle, which in one West African country now costs no more than US$6, can be stripped and reassembled by a child of 10. In some ways, children make better soldiers than adults: they are easier to intimidate and they do as they are told, they are less likely to run away and they do not demand pay.
Children are a valued resource in many of today's long-drawn-out wars -- some conflicts have lasted a generation or more. Alone, frightened, bored or frustrated, children may finally choose to fight. Even if they do not volunteer, they may be forcibly recruited. As part of their training, child soldiers are sometimes brutalized in order to turn them into fierce warriors. In Sierra Leone in 1995, children have been forced to take part in the torture and execution of their own relatives. After this, there is no going back.
In times of war, even children who remain as 'civilians' are subjected to horrific experiences. Girls, especially, face the prospect of sexual violence. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Rwanda, rape has been used as a deliberate tactic to demoralize communities and as a form of 'ethnic cleansing', in which girls have been raped and then made to bear 'the enemy's' child. In some raids in Rwanda, virtually every adolescent girl who survived the attack was subsequently raped. Many of them bore the children of rape, and many of those children were abandoned.
Wars have also been adding to the huge numbers of uprooted people. Around 53 million people have been forced into flight, either displaced within their own countries, or as refugees seeking protection elsewhere. At least half of these are children. Most uprooted children travel with their parents, but many others are 'unaccompanied children' who have been lost, separated or orphaned in the panic of flight. In 1994, an estimated 114,000 Rwandese children were separated from their families.
The report says that during conflicts around 20 times more people die from lack of food and medical services, combined with the stress of flight, than from weapons. Hunger is an inevitable outcome when war disrupts food production. But warring parties also deliberately manipulate conditions to affect food production and to control relief supplies. Children are especially vulnerable. The report says that in the period of conflict from 1980 to 1988, Angola lost an estimated 330,000 children and Mozambique about 490,000 due to war-related causes.
The report emphasizes that children who survive wars may well suffer from severe psychosocial problems: "Millions of children have been present at events far beyond the worst nightmares of most adults." A survey of children in Angola in 1995 found that 66 per cent had seen people murdered, 91 per cent had seen dead bodies, and 67 per cent had seen people being tortured, beaten or hurt. These experiences are reflected in a wide variety of symptoms from nightmares to a general sense of fear, insecurity and bitterness. One of the most disturbing traumas for a child is, in fact, separation from parents.
A further tragedy of war that haunts children even when conflict ends is the ever-present threat from anti-personnel land-mines. In 64 countries around the world, there are an estimated 110 million land-mines still lodged in the ground -- waiting. These are of particular danger to curious children, to whom they may seem attractive toys, yet they will explode even under the gentle pressure of a child's hand or foot. Land-mines can be cleared-but only at enormous expense. Ironically, weapons that cost less than US$3 each to make can cost up to US$1,000 each to clear. While some mines were cleared in 1993, even more new ones were laid, leaving a 'de-mining deficit' for the year of 1.9 million mines, adding as much as US$1.4 billion to the cost of clearance.
The abuses against children in wartime violate international conventions, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention, its Additional Protocols and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. The report points out that the principles, provisions and procedures of the Convention are particularly relevant at times of war when all rights of the child are at risk. But such international laws require much greater determination from governments if they are to be effective. The report argues, therefore, for an Anti-war Agenda, which emphasizes:
But beyond the immediate conflicts, the Executive Director of UNICEF also emphasizes the longer-term value of protecting children. "Many of today's most intractable disputes, for all the ethnic or religious character they acquire, are at heart struggles for resources and for survival. Today's problems of poverty and violence will never subside unless we invest in the physical, mental and emotional development of the next generation."