Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse and UNICEF last Thursday created a new initiative called ‘Bring Back the Child’, designed to eliminate the recruitment and use of child soldiers in that country. The national program is designed to prevent child recruitment and also “promote the release of all recruited children” in Sri Lanka. The multimedia initiative [...]

For many former child soldiers the reintegration part of DDR (disarmament, rehabilitation and reintegration) can be the most traumatic. They are often no longer accepted by their communities and their families, and are sometimes feared or even reviled. According to psychologist Michael Wessells, a professor at Columbia University and author of the book Child Soldiers: [...]

Chief Minister Chandrakanthan of Sri Lanka has pledged that the “child soldier issue” relating to the children being held by the Thamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikai (TMVP) Party will be “concluded in the next three months.” According to the minister, the TMVP party has already handed over the children to their parents and relatives. However, UNICEF [...]

Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, said in a press release on January 21, 2009 that the LTTE (Tamil Tigers from Sri Lanka) needs to immediately release children held in its ranks, “stress(ing) that both authorities and humanitarian partners should prepare to separate these children and reintegrate them back [...]

December 18, 2008 • 2:49 pm 0 A bill called “Child Soldiers’ Act of 2008″ proposed in the House of Representatives in Manila, Philippines would provide scholarship and rehabilitation programs for former child soldiers involved in armed conflicts. The official press release from the Congress of the Philippines Congress. Specifically: House Bill 5544 seeks comprehensive [...]

The Times of India recently reported that the People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) has stepped up efforts to boost recruitment by targeting children, mainly between the ages of 10-18. Worried over the depleting cadre strength, the party’s Malkangiri division has decided to fill up the vacant slots in the platoons and area committees. [They] have [...]

Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP), a Sri Lanka militia (and breakaway faction of the Tamil Tiger rebels) backed by the government, has agreed Thursday to release 60 child soldiers it currently has fighting in its ranks. Human Rights Watch has claimed that from June 2006 to December 2006 they forcefully recruited several hundred children. According [...]

In anticipation of a visit from the UN chief Ban Ki-moon scheduled to arrive in Nepal on October 31. According to this article by the Thaindian News: there was growing speculation that the Maoists would free their disqualified combatants before the UN chief’s arrival UNMIN (United Nations Mission in Nepal) has been overseeing verification of [...]

…but the government of Sri Lanka has denied their appeal. On October, 10, Sri Lanka submitted an application to the European Union “to extend the generalized system of preferences plus (GSP+) concessions, and had submitted information to show that the country was in compliance with European rules.” In turn, the EU requested that Sri Lanka [...]

According to the Democratic Voice of Burma, on September 21, a 13 year old boy was forced at knife-point to join the national army. A week after the kidnapping, the boy’s mother located her son at a military recruitment base in Utyinthaya but was unable to rescue him, a military officer citing official procedure. There [...]