Statement by SRSG Radhika Coomaraswamy at the ICC, The Hague, the Netherlands
Opening remarks by Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy
SRSG for Children and Armed Conflict
ICC seminar
“Understanding Child Soldiers and the Need for Education”
24 August 2011
ICC, The Hague, the Netherlands
Excellencies, dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to be here with you today for the ICC seminar on “Understanding Child Soldiers and the Need for Education.” I would like to thank the Office of the Prosecutor for hosting this important event to highlight the plight of child soldiers and the role played by the ICC in bringing to justice leaders and commanders who engage in child recruitment during armed conflict. This is of great relevance to my work as Special Representative to protect and advocate on behalf of children affected by armed conflict. The ICC has been instrumental in bringing the issue of children in armed conflict to the attention of the international community and ending the cycle of impunity for perpetrators of grave violations against children. In its first case, the ICC indicted Thomas Lubanga of the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the charges of recruitment and use of child soldiers, sending a clear message that such practices are defined as war crimes under the Rome Statute and will be prosecuted. Since then, three more warlords have been charged with the recruitment and use of children. The ICC also brought attitudinal change in national courts, which are now increasingly prosecuting crimes against humanity and war crimes, thus preventing and deterring violations against children.
Root causes of child recruitment
In order to understand the issue of child soldiers and to determine appropriate ways of ensuring justice for affected children, we must first examine the root causes of recruitment and the particular role of the leadership of armed groups. In modern warfare, children, both girls and boys, are increasingly becoming subject of military recruitment. The diversity of armed groups and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons have led to the recruitment and use of hundreds of thousands of child soldiers around the world. Children as young as eight are drawn into violence. Some are used by their commanders as frontline combatants, while others carry out support functions, such as being messengers, porters, spies, cooks, sexual slaves and human shields.
Children become associated with armed forces or armed groups for a variety of reasons. The Sierra Leone and Uganda models of forced recruitment, where many children were abducted, drugged, and beaten into submission was for a long time the archetype of child soldiering. There is no doubt that many groups do abduct, intimidate and coerce children to join them. Families are sometimes asked to give a child each to the cause. Brute force is often used to take children away. Not all children, however, are abducted. There are a number of other push and pull factors that result in children becoming involved in armed conflict. Recruitment can also take place in the context of poverty, discrimination, displacement, ideological attraction, lack of opportunities, lack of choice, defending the community or survival. In addition, witnessing parents being killed or humiliated, family members raped or their communities attacked can also be a powerful motivating force.
Despite the acceptance of the fact that some children do go on their own to join armed groups, there is disagreement about to what extent this can be termed “voluntary”, or freely chosen. Some are of the belief that children are not capable of this kind of moral judgment, so any choice is not voluntary and any decision to join must be coerced. Even the most voluntary of acts can be a desperate attempt to survive by children with a limited number of options. In such circumstances, any consent given by a child cannot be regarded as truly voluntary in the full sense of the word. Children are often desired as recruits precisely because they can be easily intimidated and indoctrinated, lacking the mental maturity and judgment to express consent. The decision to join an armed group can also be conditioned by material, social and cultural realities that allow for such a choice and therefore must be understood in that context.
Responsibility of commanders
Despite these push and pull factors for recruitment, research increasingly shows that emphasis should be placed on the responsibility of those adults who recruit children, meaning the leaders and military commanders. The material, social and cultural factors contributing to the recruitment of children would not result in child soldiering if the leadership of a particular group was to refuse to exploit the conditions that vulnerable children face. The organization of the armed group is critical to whether children are recruited. It is for this reason that activists stress the accountability of these actors. There are many groups, that do not recruit child soldiers because they refuse to accept them. Unfortunately, if a group decides to use child soldiers, then the potential for exploitation is very high.
Military life and ethos have a logic of their own and can be an attractive option for vulnerable children. Many young people come to commanders even if they are not abducted. Responsible commanders turn them away. Others, however, see that children actually may make great soldiers. With what psychologists call “underdeveloped” concepts of death, they are fearless in fighting, taking risks and seeing much of it as a game. They obey commands and pose little threat to the hierarchy. As a result a group begins to employ more and more child soldiers, even to the extent of abducting them.
It is clear from the analysis of root causes that the leadership of an armed group is a key factor in the recruitment of children. Therefore the fight against impunity, holding leaders accountable and deterring them from future action is of great importance. Though conditions for child recruitment exist because of a material, social and cultural context, it is the decision of armed actors to recruit or enlist these children that is the final marker and unless these leaders and commanders are held accountable, there will be no possibility of dealing with this problem in a comprehensive way.
Role of the International Criminal Court
In the past two decades, the international community has taken a number of crucial initiatives to end impunity for grave violations against children. The Rome Statute of 1998, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002, recognized “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 and using them to participate in hostilities” as a war crime. Since the Statute came into force, crimes committed against children during armed conflict have figured prominently in indictments issued by the ICC in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and the Central African Republic. Though these are only a few select cases, they have sent out the necessary warning signal and serve as a useful deterrent against child recruitment in places where an armed conflict is occurring.
The fight against impunity at the international level serves as an important message and commitment of the international community that the crime of child recruitment will no longer be tolerated. To be truly effective, however, there must be action at the national level. National legislation, national prosecutions and national systems to prevent recruitment must be set up if the struggle against the recruitment and use of children is to be sustainable. Building national capacity to do that is one of the most important challenges for the upcoming years. The Rome Statute and the ICC have entrenched some major advances and have provided a number of interesting concepts and ideas for the way forward. We must all watch closely and learn, as many of these developments could be worthwhile examples for national courts and jurisdictions trying similar cases.
One of the most important aspects of the ICC is that it has helped to break the silence on atrocities committed against human kind. Breaking the silence is the first act of healing. The ICC has made talking, venting and acting against war crimes and crimes against humanity legitimate and created a network of activists and agencies who are in a position to support victims seeking justice for the crimes committed against them. The Rome Statute and the establishment of the ICC were groundbreaking achievements for humanity, not only by giving voices to the victims, but also by bringing conceptual clarity on the definition of war crimes, and by putting in place provisions for the protection of victims and witnesses and reparations to those affected.
(1) Child recruitment as a war crime
In terms of conceptual clarity under my own mandate, The Rome Statute, for the first time in an international legal context, stated that “conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into armed forces or groups or using them to participate actively in hostilities is a war crime.” Finally, this is clearly stated and articulated. It leaves no area of ambiguity or doubt that these are morally offensive crimes.
With regard to girls and boys, there is also conceptual clarity. “Committing rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, or any other form of sexual violence” is a war crime, because it is “committing outrages upon personal dignity”.
(2) Protection of victims and witnesses
The difficulty for victims to come forward in judicial proceedings and face their memories and their assailants directly is often underestimated. Victims have to take into account the consequences when making themselves heard. If they speak, is there a possibility of reprisal on them or their families? Will the victims if they testify, be capable of withstanding a vigorous cross-examination that often results in an attack on their character at the horrific events as they recall them?
The experiences of the ICC with the difficult balance of participation of children in court proceedings on one hand and the protection of children on the other hand, brought to the attention the need for protective measures for children who give evidence. It also highlighted the need to familiarize child witnesses prior to the trial with the layout of the courtroom, the persons likely to be present and the procedures to be followed. For this reason, I am pleased to see that the Court has adopted a number of measures to protect witnesses from possible consequences if they testify in court. These include: hearings held in closed sessions; concealment of identity through voice or image distortion; the use of screens to keep away the witness from the view of the accused; and pre- and post-statement counseling.
(3) Victim status
The ICC also offers an alternative and game changing mechanism by which children who are victims of international crimes during armed conflict can access justice. Rather than giving evidence as a witness in a case before the court, the ICC permits individuals who have suffered harm to ask for “victim status” instead. The option of being granted victim status at the ICC may be less stressful for a child and is less likely to cause re-traumatisation.
Child victims can participate either directly or through legal representatives in a number of ways: attending court hearings; presenting to the court their views on the charges brought against the accused; and ask questions to a witness or expert testifying before the court. The child is not required to attend the court or to participate unless he or she wishes to, allowing children to focus on rebuilding their lives rather than worrying about appearing in court. Also, victim status allows for a larger number of children to access justice. While the number of witnesses in a trial is limited due to time and court restraints, the number of child victims is unlimited.
(4) Reparations
Justice must also mean reparations to victims. For children, justice includes far more than punishing a perpetrator. As important to them is the restoration of their rights and an element of reparation to address their loss of childhood, loss of family, loss of education and loss of livelihood. The ICC is the first international tribunal to include reparations to victims of war crimes in its mandate. It established the Trust Fund for Victims, which is tasked to implement court-ordered reparation awards and to provide assistance in the form of physical rehabilitation, material support and psycho-social counseling to general victims of international crimes where the ICC has jurisdiction.
This kind of reparation is particularly novel in that it is not linked to any specific ICC case and assist victims both individually and collectively. The Trust Fund is currently supporting the reintegration of former child soldiers in Uganda and the DRC, including 500 girls who have been subject to rape, sexual slavery and other forms of sexual violence. As may be expected, the Trust Fund does not always have the necessary resources. The international community should strengthen its capacity and support this fund to the fullest.
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
The Rome Statute has given hope to many children around the world who have become victims of atrocities. Even if we cannot bring justice to every victim, we must try to bring the benefits of an international justice system to those we can.
Effective justice is a deterrent. In many of my negotiations with non-state actors for the release of children, groups have questioned me in details about the ICC provisions. There is some fear about the ICC and such fear is healthy and it is born out of respect. Hopefully the possibility of appearing before the ICC will deter many parties from committing horrendous crimes.
Those of us who have worked in the field have seen the eyes of women and children, blank and immobile after their terrible experiences of violence. We should never forget what this is all about in the first place. It is about the victims and their right to justice. The defendants must be entitled to all their guaranteed rights, but it is the victim who is the raison d’etre of this process. We hope that the ICC will succeed in bringing justice for these victims and prevent further violations of their rights.
Thank you.