HRW - Letter to Leader of the Revolutionary United Front

Corporal Foday Saybana Sankoh
Leader of the Revolutionary United Front
c/o Hotel 2 Fevrier
Lome, Togo

Dear Mr. Sankoh:

Human Rights Watch would like to commend the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) on its recent efforts, in conjunction with UNICEF and the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG), to demobilize children who had been abducted. However, we are deeply concerned that thousands of children under the age of 18 remain in RUF ranks, and that recent reports indicate that as many as 3000 have been abducted by RUF forces since the beginning of this year. Testimony received by Human Rights Watch researchers indicates that some of these children are currently undergoing military training.

As the RUF prepares for upcoming peace negotiations with the Government of Sierra Leone, Human Rights Watch calls on the RUF to take human rights concerns into consideration, to continue to release abducted children, to demobilize all children within its ranks, and to stop recruiting children.

Although international law (as defined in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, their Additional Protocols of 1977 and the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child) clearly prohibits the recruitment of any child under the age of 15, an international consensus is building in favor of the prohibitions on any military recruitment below the age of 18. The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols bind all parties to the conflict, including the RUF.

Emotionally and physically immature, children are ill-equipped to deal with the harsh realities of armed conflict. Because of their inexperience and lack of training, child soldiers suffer far higher casualty rates than their adult counterparts. Those who survive may be permanently disabled, or bear psychological scars from being forced to both commit and witness horrific atrocities. Former child combatants often require much more intensive rehabilitation and reintegration services than adult soldiers following a conflict. Often denied an education and the opportunity to learn skills that are beneficial to civilian society, former child combatants are often drawn back into conflicts, and are easy prey for armed groups and criminal gangs.

Last month, more than 250 representatives of Governments and civil society from fifty countries participated in the African conference on the use of child soldiers, held in Maputo, Mozambique. On April 22, participants adopted a declaration condemning the use of any child under the age of eighteen by any armed force or armed group, and calling upon all African states to ensure that children are not recruited into armed forces or militia forces under their jurisdiction, and that all child combatants are demobilized, rehabilitated, and reintegrated into society.

The growing condemnation of the use of child soldiers by the international community is also reflected in Graca Machel's 1996 report to the United Nations on the impact of armed conflict on children, the United Nations Security Council statements of June 1998 and February 1999, the UN Secretary General's announcement in October 1998 of a new policy establishing 18 as the minimum age for all UN peacekeepers, and the formation last year of the international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, which is actively campaigning for the adoption and implementation of international standards prohibiting the recruitment or participation of children under the age of eighteen in armed conflict.

We have also sent a letter to the Government of Sierra Leone, urging them to respect international standards and refrain from using child soldiers.

The use of children as combatants contravenes common standards of decency. We call upon you to demonstrate your commitment to abide by international standards and to show leadership in stopping this reprehensible practice by taking steps to end the participation of children in RUF forces.

Peter Takirambudde
Executive Director,
Africa Division

Lois Whitman
Executive Director,
Children's Rights Division

cc: Omrie Michael Golley, Spokesman and Legal Representative, Revolutionary United Front
Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict