Children Carry Guns for a U.S. Ally, Somalia

From the New York Times:

MOGADISHU, Somalia — Awil Salah Osman prowls the streets of this shattered city, looking like so many other boys, with ripped-up clothes, thin limbs and eyes eager for attention and affection.

But Awil is different in two notable ways: he is shouldering a fully automatic, fully loaded Kalashnikov assault rifle; and he is working for a military that is substantially armed and financed by the United States.

“You!” he shouts at a driver trying to sneak past his checkpoint, his cherubic face turning violently angry.

“You know what I’m doing here!” He shakes his gun menacingly. “Stop your car!”

The driver halts immediately. In Somalia, lives are lost quickly, and few want to take their chances with a moody 12-year-old.

It is well known that Somalia’s radical Islamist insurgents are plucking children off soccer fields and turning them into fighters. But Awil is not a rebel. He is working for Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, a critical piece of the American counterterrorism strategy in the Horn of Africa.

According to Somali human rights groups and United Nations officials, the Somali government, which relies on assistance from the West to survive, is fielding hundreds of children or more on the front lines, some as young as 9.

Child soldiers are deployed across the globe, but according to the United Nations, the Somali government is among the “most persistent violators” of sending children into war, finding itself on a list with notorious rebel groups like the Lord’s Resistance Army.

Somali government officials concede that they have not done the proper vetting. Officials also revealed that the United States government was helping pay their soldiers, an arrangement American officials confirmed, raising the possibility that the wages for some of these child combatants may have come from American taxpayers.

United Nations officials say they have offered the Somali government specific plans to demobilize the children. But Somalia’s leaders, struggling for years to withstand the insurgents’ advances, have been paralyzed by bitter infighting and are so far unresponsive.

Several American officials also said that they were concerned about the use of child soldiers and that they were pushing their Somali counterparts to be more careful. But when asked how the American government could guarantee that American money was not being used to arm children, one of the officials said, “I don’t have a good answer for that.”

According to Unicef, only two countries have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits the use of soldiers younger than 15: the United States and Somalia.

Many human rights groups find this unacceptable, and President Obama himself, when this issue was raised during his campaign, did not disagree.

“It is embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land,” he said.

All across this lawless land, smooth, hairless faces peek out from behind enormous guns. In blown-out buildings, children chamber bullets twice the size of their fingers. In neighborhoods by the sea, they run checkpoints and face down four-by-four trucks, though they can barely see over the hood.

For the full article, please click here.

From the release of the US TIP Report yesterday, with child soldiers are listed as a Topic of Special Interest, Somalia is not given a tier ranking for the eighth consecutive year due to a lack of a viable government. The information on Somalia, however, goes into detail about the different methods by which child soldiers are recruited, kidnapped or forced into supporting militias throughout the country. This article, however, is a reminder that human trafficking, in this case for the purpose of child soldiers, is affected by the wider policy decisions we make concerning security, economics, trade, immigration. It will never be enough to simply say, "We are against slavery," but then ignore the implications of our larger policy decisions. Or to say that it is embarrassing to be in the company of Somalia because the U.S. also has not signed the CRC, but then continue on without ratifying the convention. It will take more than that to put words into action.

Emmanuel Jal: The music of a war child

For five years, young Emmanuel Jal fought as a child soldier in the Sudan. Rescued by an aid worker, he's become an international hip-hop star and an activist for kids in war zones. In words and lyrics, he tells the story of his amazing life.



Learn more about Emmanuel Jal

Colombian armed groups recruiting child soldiers

The Colombian government's 41-year war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) has become increasingly dangerous for children.

The group is looking more and more at child soldiers - boys and girls below the age of 18 - as it seeks to recruit new fighters.

The Colombian government says there are 9,000 soldiers in that age group in irregular armies, but independent sources say the number is closer to 11,000.

Al Jazeera's Gabriel Elizondo reports from San Jose de Guaviare in Colombia.

War Child: "I Got Soul" by the Young Soul Rebels

About the Music
Official video for 'I Got Soul' - War Child's single recorded by the 'Young Soul Rebels'

The track, a new, re-written version of the stirring Killers anthem "All These Things That I've Done", will be released on October 19th on Island Records. Proceeds go to help War Child's vital work protecting children from the brutal effects of war.

The Young Soul Rebels are:
N-Dubz
Pixie Lott
Tinchy Stryder
Frankmusik
V.V. Brown
Kid British
Chipmunk
Mpho
McLean
Ironik
Domino Go
Bashy
Egypt
London Community Gospel Choir

About War Child
War Child International is a network of independent organisations, working across the world to help children affected by war.

War Child was founded upon a fundamental goal: to advance the cause of peace through investing hope in the lives of children caught up in the horrors of war.

More info on War Child

Obama's Visit to Former Slave Outpost in Ghana and Old and New Slavery

Picture from the Telegraph

Today, U.S. President Barack Obama made a side trip during an official visit to Ghana to see a former outpost of the Atlantic Slave Trade, where millions of Africans were sent to become slaves all over the world, including the U.S. Most of the media commentary related to his visit talks about the emotional pull that touring such a place has for the person visiting; this piece by Komla Dumor from the BBC I particularly feel is very well written.

Cape Coast, Ghana

Before heading to the Cape Coast to see the physical remnants of the Atlantic Slave Trade, Obama mentioned human trafficking during his official speech in Accra; more than once, actually:

Picture from Amnesty International

It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense bred conflict, and the West has often approached Africa as a patron, rather than a partner. But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade, or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants. In my father's life, it was partly tribalism and patronage in an independent Kenya that for a long stretch derailed his career, and we know that this kind of corruption is a daily fact of life for far too many...

Time and again, Ghanaians have chosen Constitutional rule over autocracy, and shown a democratic spirit that allows the energy of your people to break through. We see that in leaders who accept defeat graciously, and victors who resist calls to wield power against the opposition. We see that spirit in courageous journalists like Anas Aremeyaw Anas, who risked his life to report the truth. We see it in police like Patience Quaye, who helped prosecute the first human trafficker in Ghana. We see it in the young people who are speaking up against patronage and participating in the political process...

That is why we must stand up to inhumanity in our midst. It is never justifiable to target innocents in the name of ideology. It is the death sentence of a society to force children to kill in wars. It is the ultimate mark of criminality and cowardice to condemn women to relentless and systematic rape. We must bear witness to the value of every child in Darfur and the dignity of every woman in Congo. No faith or culture should condone the outrages against them. All of us must strive for the peace and security necessary for progress.

In the course of the trainings we conduct on behalf of the International Institute of Buffalo, in order to talk about the development of modern anti-trafficking laws, we explain that the conditions of trafficking existed prior to 2000 in the U.S., we just didn't have a name for it [i.e. a federal law that gave it a name]. Inevitably at the end, one participant will mention, "Well, we did have a name for this before the federal law, didn't we? I mean, isn't this slavery?"

True. Human trafficking is a modern-day slavery. Ron Soodalter and Kevin Bales devote some of their first pages in The Slave Next Door to talk about the old and new forms of slavery:

Picture from About.com

Most Americans' idea of slavery comes right of Roots - the chains, the whip in the overseer's hand, the crack of the auctioneer's gavel. That was one form of bondage. The slavery plaguing America today takes a different form, but make no mistake, it is real slavery. Where the law sanctioned slavery in the 1800s, today it's illegal. Where antebellum masters took pride in the ownership of slaves as a sign of status, today's human traffickers and slaveholders keep slaves hidden, making it all the more difficult to locate victims and punish offenders. Where the slaves in America were once primarily African and African American, today we have "equal opportunity" slavery; modern-day slaves come in all races, all types, and all ethnicities. We are, if anything, totally democratic when it comes to owning and abusing our fellow human beings. All that's required is the chance of a profit and a person weak enough and vulnerable enough to enslave.

This is capitalism at its worst, and it is supported by a dramatic alteration in the basic economic question of slavery. Where an average slave in 1850 would have cost the equivalent of $40,000 in modern money, today's slave can be bought for a few hundred dollars. This cheapness makes the modern slave easily affordable, but it also makes him or her a disposable commodity. For a slaveholder it's often cheaper to let a slave die than it is to keep the slave alive. There is no form of slavery, past or present, that isn't horrific; however, today's slavery is one of the most diabolical strains to emerge in the thousands of years in which human have been enslaving their fellows.

So, again, yes, human trafficking is a modern form of slavery, and some victims today suffer from the same humiliation and physical violence used in historical slavery: degrading physical inspection and bargaining for their sale, kidnapping, chains, back-breaking field and housework, among many others. However our historical understanding of slavery should not hinder our ability to understand its modern form: just because we don't see physical chains or public auctions does not mean we should assume that when someone is being exploited for labor or sexual purposes that it is not slavery or trafficking, as it is now known.

I hope that I will be able to make the trip to Cape Coast Castle at some point in the near future because I believe the trip would be a powerful reminder that so many of our modern human rights problems, including trafficking, have their roots in historical human rights abuses. However, the modern form of slavery needs a modern response: simply declaring it illegal isn't enough. Ensuring that our fellow human beings aren't victimized by traffickers will take an educated public and collaboration among government, non-government, international and law enforcement agencies alike to address root causes and consequences. It will also take a persistence that defies any notion that just because a problem has thousands of years of history, it is impossible to overcome.

Intervew: Brittany Heenan, Invisible Children

On April 25th, 2009, Invisible Children held The Rescue all over the world (100 cities across 10 countries). The event garnered significant media attention to raise awareness about child soldiers in Uganda. Invisible Children started in 2003 in response to the abducting of children in Uganda who are then enslaved and used as soldiers. I interviewed Brittany Heenan about her experience participating in The Rescue. Brittany is a student at the University of Missouri who is actively involved with Invisible Children and anti-trafficking work.

JK: Can you describe your experiences with the Rescue in your own words?

BH: On April 25th, I drove to St. Louis, MO and met up with 500 others to sleep under the Arch. We waited and waited. We called political leaders like Claire McCaskill. We left notes at the front desk of Taylor Swift's hotel. We made signs and caught the attention of the media. Finally on Sunday we were lucky enough to be rescued by St. Louis Rams football player, Chris Chamberlain.

Immediately, a caravan of devoted Rescue Riders rode to Wichita, KS to wait to be rescued. Finally, over 500 people met at the last city: Chicago, IL. 6 days after abducting ourselves, we choreographed a song and dance to perform outside of Oprah's studio. By this point we were going to be picky. We would not settle for anyone but Oprah or Obama to rescue us.

On the morning of the 7th day of being abducted, we headed back to Oprah's studio at 3:00am. Around 5:00am we surrounded her studio, shoulder to shoulder with peace signs in the air. She drove up and invited the three founders of Invisible Children inside to talk about what was going on. She agreed to give us a spot on her show. Friday, May 1 at 9:00am we were finally rescued!

JK: What did you learn from this experience?

BH: I learned that not everyone is going to understand the point of raising awareness. I learned that getting people involved is not as easy as it seems. But I learned that it doesn't hurt to try to inform these people of the atrocities going on in other countries.

JK: What did you take away from participating in the Rescue?

BH: This was a life altering experience. I realized that "a bunch of kids" just got Oprah's attention. Which means we have finally reached the hearts of America. This was a huge step towards freeing these enslaved children.

JK: What motivated you to participate in the Rescue?

BH: Children all over the world are being forced to do things they don't and shouldn't want to do. I can't imagine me at 8 years old carrying around an AK-47. I hated guns when I was 8. I played with Barbies. Why should a child not be allowed to live the life of a child? I've come to realize that I can change this. Me.

Child Soldiers in Burma

From Human Rights Watch:

Throughout Burma (Myanmar), children as young as eleven are being forcibly recruited into Burma's national army, the largest user of child soldiers in the world. Without their parents' knowledge or consent, they are sent to military training camps where they are routinely beaten, and brutally punished if they try to escape. Once deployed, they may be forced to fight and/or carry out human rights abuses against civilians, including other children.

Burma's armed opposition groups also recruit children. Some groups accept children who volunteer in order to avenge past abuses by Burmese forces against their family or community or because they have been displaced from their homes by fighting. Others forcibly conscript children. Although some groups claim to keep children in non-combat roles, many participate in combat, sometimes with little or no training.

Burma: World's Highest Number of Child Soldiers

Child Prostitution in Sri Lanka

Former Sudanese Child Soldier Turned Hip-Hop Artist Performs at UN

Emmanuel Jal, child-soldier of Sudan turned Hip-Hop artist, has incorporated his experiences into "Warchild," due out May 13, 2008. The inspirations for the 13 songs on Warchild are rooted in Jal's impossible past. In "Forced to Sin," Jal recounts, "I lived with an AK-47/By my side/Slept with one eye open wide / Run / Duck / Play dead." His love and loyalty for his homeland of Sudan shines in "Stronger" - "I pledge allegiance/To My Motherland/That I'll do everything possible/To make a stand/Yes I can." Jal pleads with rapper 50 Cent on "50 Cent" to be a better role model for his young fans: "You have done enough damage selling crack cocaine/now you got a kill a black man video game/We have lost a whole generation through this lifestyle/now you want to put it in the game for a little child to play..."

Jal plans to support the release of Warchild with a tour of North America; details will be announced shortly. In addition, he frequently speaks on college campus about his experiences in an effort to raise awareness of and halt the inhumane treatment of children in Sudan. "I believe I've survived for a reason," says Jal in Warchild. "To tell my story, to touch lives."

UN News bit:



Emmanuel Jal - Warchild music video



More info on the album here

Mind Trafficking: Child Soldiers in Africa

By Ayesha Ahmad

The figure is staggering: there are 200,000 child soldiers across the continent of Africa.

"Recruitment" takes the form of kidnapping: villages are raided by rebel groups who pillage and destroy leaving dead bodies and burning homes in their wake.

After the devastation is complete, the children are gathered and taken back to the rebel's camp. The children's horrific journey has just begun.

Immediately the children see and experience things the average man or woman cannot comprehend: other captives are maimed in front of them or the children are maimed themselves for crying or being frightened.

The transition is cruel and jolting. Like other forms of indoctrination in forced prostitution, forced labor and domestic slavery, the child goes into a state of shock and loses his sense of self.

More than likely these soon-to-be child soldiers have never before visited a city. Growing up in small rural villages, they are accustomed to a quiet existence. Maybe the threat of war was always there, but they would most likely have been sheltered from the talk and fears by their parents. Or not. Either way, as with many things in life something only happens to others... until it happens to you.

Suddenly they are thrust into a living nightmare; all around them is killing. Having just experienced their families being killed, the children are told that they too have to kill or be killed.

Sometimes they have to kill their family as part of their initiation. Killing to save their life. Even in this type of living hell, survival is still an issue.

But how can a child kill?

The rebel armies work from the first minute to brainwash the children. To blame the other armies for the deaths of their parents.

The rebels incite anger.

They use a child’s vulnerability to instill a simple world view: kill or be killed. And most importantly kill those who killed their family. The child becomes an empty vessel, his true personality buried underneath the anger and hatred the rebel armies instill in their young minds.
Could this be the worst form of trafficking: the brainwashing and trafficking of a child's mind to create violence, bloodshed and brutality?

Many of these children are under twelve years old. They raid villages, they guard border points, they are under control day and night by the rebels; the only adults these children have left in their young lives.

Rehabilitation programmes can be successful, but the road to healing is a long and arduous process. A child soldier's ability to bounce back from their horrific experiences and begin to find joy and trust in life again, however, illustrates the great resilience of a child’s mind, of the human mind.

Those who traffic children and force them to soldier, on the other hand, know the capability of a child’s mind all too well. Indeed, this amazing ability to adjust, to adapt, to survive can be molded to any situation, whether for the greater good or the greater evil.

A child enters the world with no paradigms, no preconceived notions, no stereotypes or limitations on what they can or cannot do. They are blank canvasses upon which we adults paint the rules and ways of the world as we understand them, as our community, society, nation and world dictates.

As a child solider, their mind is twisted, brainwashed and pigeon-holed into a reality based on violence and killing.

The child soldier is the saddest of trafficking victims.

Why one girl refuses to remember

Part of an excellent story about how children cope with the horrors of tragedy, abuse, and exploitation:

From CNN:

Nway pretends that it never happened.

The storm didn't come. The wind didn't tear her home to pieces. The cyclone didn't sweep her mother and father away.

In those brief moments, when she tunes out the questions, the 7-year-girl from Myanmar can step back in time -- before May's Cyclone Nargis took everything away.

That's the girl aid workers from World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian group, found when they met Nway in her demolished village a month after the cyclone.

"When she was asked about the cyclone, she turned away and said she didn't remember anything about it, and left," says Ashley Clements, a World Vision worker who met Nway.

International relief groups know how to rebuild devastated countries like Myanmar. But how do they rebuild the lives of children like Nway? That's the challenge faced by groups trying to help child survivors of natural and manmade disasters.

Aid workers who deal with these children say the experience can drain their souls. They try to comfort children in Darfur, Sudan, who have seen their mothers raped; children in China who have seen their parents buried under rubble; children in Louisiana who watched their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

No matter where they encounter these children, these aid workers face the same question: How can a child remain a child after experiencing a tragedy?

Rose Kimeu, a disaster response specialist for World Vision in African and Latin America, says many children don't know how.

"They don't laugh. They don't smile," Kimeu says. "They have this look in their eyes that's very sad... It's something that breaks my heart over and over."

What Nway wants for her future

But some of the memories aid workers carry around with them are more painful to recall.

Dean Hirsch, president of World Vision International, just returned from visiting some of the child-friendly spaces. He was struck by the children's body language.

"A lot of the children were holding onto to each other," he says. "If their mother was there, they would hold onto her, or if she wasn't, they'd hold onto the workers."

The children spent a lot of time drawing pictures of their homes, toys and pets.

"They were trying to restore through their memories what they had," Hirsch says.
A child who loses a parent faces plenty of dangers, Hirsch says. They could suffer brain damage or stunted growth if they don't eat enough.

"If they lost their father, the income source is gone," he says. 'If it's the mother, it's that person who did the food and supplied the love."

The children face other risks as well. They become easy targets for human traffickers. Some girls are exploited sexually by men.

When World Vision established child-friendly spaces in Darfur, Kimeu, the group's disaster response specialist, says her staffers noticed something odd. No girls would visit.

They later found out why. Many of them had been raped or seen their mothers raped. World Vision had male workers in the child-friendly spaces.

"They will not go near a man," says. "They will simply not show up."

The healing process varies with each child, Kimeu says. She says there was one girl who was raped in Darfur who took a year to play with other children.

Some never heal. In Uganda, some former child soldiers introduced to the child-friendly spaces never learned to be children again.

"Former child soldiers are very difficult," Kimeu says. "Some of them have killed not one but several people."

Today, Nway is being helped toward her own recovery. She lives in a village with her aunt. She plays with her friends during the day in child-friendly spaces and looks after her little cousin.

At times, Nway returns to her old village with the adults. She walks over the ruins of her old school. She proudly wears a yellow silk blouse that was donated to her. But she and the other villagers have a difficult time ahead. The cyclone blew away rice, utensils, farming tools -- even the village's cows and buffalos were swept away.

Nway may no longer talk about her past but she will talk about her future. Clements, the World Vision staffer who visited her, once asked Nway what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She talked that time. Her answer revealed that though she might not be ready to talk about her own wounds, she's already becoming more sensitive to the pain of others.

"I want," she answered after hesitating, "to be a doctor."

Cuba Rejects Its Inclusion on US List of Countries Not Fighting Human Trafficking

From International Herald Tribune:

Cuba on Sunday rejected U.S. claims that it does not do enough to combat human trafficking, saying that Washington "has a lot to learn" about life on the island.

U.S. authorities "are unfamiliar with and distort" Cuban reality, the Foreign Relations Ministry said in a written response to the U.S. State Department's annual "Trafficking in Persons Report," released Wednesday. The report tracks human trafficking for the sex trade, coerced labor and the recruitment of child soldiers, outlining efforts to fight it, including prosecution, sentencing and programs to help victims.

Listing Cuba among the world's worst offenders, the report said poor women and children on the island are often forced into prostitution by family members. But it also noted that human trafficking cannot be properly measured in Cuba, given the government's refusal to cooperate with independent observers. Cuba said it maintains a "firm" policy against human trafficking and prostitution and noted that its communist system provides for the basic needs of all citizens, making such

"Cuba does not see any value in the State Department's report," the Foreign Ministry's statement said. "The government of the United States has a lot to do in its own country to combat the rampant phenomenon there of prostitution, sexual exploitation, forced labor and the trafficking of people."

"The government of the United States has a lot to learn about Cuba and is not in a position to judge anyone," it said.

Faces of Modern Slavery