"Jenny Kuper (see footnote) states:
'Who is old enough to fight wars? The UN prefers to set a minimum age of 21 for its peace keeping forces. Yet most countries, including the US and the UK, employ soldiers from 18 upwards, in line with the current best practice standard in internationallaw.'
Even though Kuper is right to draw attention to the fact that soldiers from the US and UK are under the minimum age the UN employ for its peace keeping forces, she is wrong to say that the UK employs soldiers from 18 upward.
On signing the Optional Protocol in September 2000, the UK declared that it would "take all feasible measures to ensure that members of its armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities". At that stage it still reserved the right to deploy under-18s and confirmed this on ratifying the protocol. However in February 2003 the UK stated that "It has been decided that the army will no longer routinely deploy soldiers under the age of 18 on any operations outside the UK, except where the operation is of a purely humanitarian nature and where no hostile forces are involved".
Nevertheless earlier this year UK Defence Minister Adam Ingram made the admission that fifteen British youngsters (four of them girls) have been deployed in Iraq since 2003.
This shows that the UK is clearly in breach of its obligations not only under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), but also various articles of at least two ILO Conventions (138 and 182) it has signed.
Not only that, the Celtic League have previously highlighted the issue, following concerns expressed by Plaid Cymru in Wales, that the MoD and particularly the British army have been targeting children from underprivileged backgrounds in an attempt to recruit them in to the armed forces.
The United Kingdom is one of only a few stateswhich target children for recruitment and it has given commitments to the United Nations under the Optional Protocol on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that those recruited who are under eighteen will not be used in combat situations.
However, the Celtic League have been a long term campaigner on this very issue and have found that many assurances the British Defence Ministry give, in the end prove meaningless. "
The above comment has been submitted to the United Kingdom Guardian newspaper by Celtic League General Secretary, Rhisiart Tal-e-bot, following the publication by the paper of an article entitled "Old enough to go into battle, but still a child", (The Guardian Weekly November 16). A Special Report for Universal Children's Day by Jenny Kuper.
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J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League
21/11/07
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