Every year on this date, February
12, we, the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, will commemorate Red Hand Day on
which pleas are made to political leaders and events are staged around the
world to draw attention to the fates of child soldiers, children who are forced
to serve as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts.
We will post information about this
observance from Wikipedia and other links.
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Red Hand
Day logo (A bright right hand shape. In the center is a sillouette of a small
child in a military uniform and carrying a rifle.)
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Date
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Next time
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12
February 2015
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Frequency
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Red Hand Day, February 12 each year, is
an annual commemoration day on which pleas are made to political leaders and
events are staged around the world to draw attention to the fates of child
soldiers, children who are forced to serve as soldiers in wars and armed
conflicts. The aim of Red Hand Day is to call for action against this
practice, and support for children who are affected by it. Children have been
used repeatedly as soldiers in recent years including armed conflicts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan, Côte
d'Ivoire, Myanmar,
Philippines,
Colombia,
and Palestine.
Estimates on the number of children engaging in armed conflict around the world
show no change between 2006 and 2009. Rehabilitation for child-soldiers
returned to their communities ranges from inadequate to non-existent.
Red Hand Day was initiated in 2002
when the Optional
Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of
Children in Armed Conflict entered into force on February 12, 2002.
This protocol was adopted by the General Assembly of the United
Nations in May 2000 and currently has signatures from over 100 different
states. A number of international organizations are active against the use of
children as soldiers. These organizations include, for example, the United Nations Child
Fund (UNICEF), Amnesty International, Terre
des Hommes or the International Red
Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The work of these organizations can be
summarized by the abbreviation DDR:
Disarmament, Demobilization, Reintegration.
Child
recruitment
The worldwide number of child soldiers
is estimated to be 250,000 (as of 2009, roughly unchanged since 2006), a third
of whom are girls, in at least 17 countries—including some who have ratified
the treaty; however it is difficult to know the correct number, as most of them
are deployed in armed rebel groups.
The most important reason that armed
groups or even some governments recruit children as soldiers is their
diminished capability to distinguish between right and wrong, as well as
between reality and an adventurous game. Up to a certain age, children don't
have a full grasp of the finality of death and the severity of the act of
killing a human being. They lack the ability to correctly identify dangers and
to assess the risks of specific situations. Children are also easy to influence
and be made to follow a specific cause.
Legalities
The military
use of children is addressed by a number of international legal norms.
These include International human rights law and International humanitarian law.
According to the Additional Protocols I and II to the Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1977, children
who have not attained the age of 15 years shall neither be recruited in the
armed forces or groups, nor allowed to take part in hostilities. For persons
older than 15 but younger than 18 years, the State Parties to the Geneva
Conventions shall endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest. The
"Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict", adopted in 2000, stipulates
that its State Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons
below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities, and that they are
not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces. In addition to these legal
norms, The Worst Forms of Child Labour
Convention of the International Labour Organization,
adopted in 1999, includes forced or compulsory recruitment of children for
use in armed conflict as one of the worst forms of child labour. In the
context of this convention, the term "child" applies to all persons
under the age of 18 years.
Red Hand
Campaign
Since 2002, nations and regional
coalitions from around the world have been holding events on 12 February.
2009
In 2008 children and
teenagers initiated a campaign to collect as many red hand-prints as possible
to present to the United Nations on Red Hand Day. The red hands were made on
paper, banners and personal messages calling for an end to the use of
child-soldiers. 7,000 red hands were collected in the eastern Democratic
Republic of Congo where child recruitment had increased dramatically. Former
child soldiers from Guinea
and Côte d'Ivoire sent messages pleading for rehabilitation and assistance for
former child-soldiers. There were hundreds of events such as marches,
petitions, school awareness programs, exhibitions and red hands were delivered
to members of local congress and parliaments. Over 250,000 red hands were
collected from youths of 101 countries around the world and presented to UN
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a book at 5pm on 12 February 2009 in New
York by former child-soldiers from Colombia and Côte d'Ivoire accompanied by
young activists from Germany. Ban Ki-moon said it was an impressive effort and
the UN is determined to stamp out such abuse.
After
child recruitment
Since 2008 Sierra
Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Côte
d'Ivoire have all been taken off the "black-list". The main focus
on these children often remains with demobilising and disarming. Re-integrating
children is an important part of peace but is expensive and requires work from
whole communities.
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