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OPA News Release: [12/18/2003]
Contact Name: Mike
Biddle or Lisa Gates
Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao Visits with Former
Child Soldiers and Tours Home for Demobilized Child Soldiers
KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO—U.S. Secretary of
Labor Elaine L. Chao today met with former child soldiers and toured a home for
demobilized child soldiers run by the Belgian Red Cross. The tour was part of
Secretary Chao’s four-day visit to Africa to highlight the continuing
efforts to end the worst forms of child labor—including using children as
soldiers and trafficking in children—and to promote programs in the
workplace to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.
“While we can’t give child soldiers their childhood back, we
can help them to rebuild their lives,” said Secretary Chao. “This
work is so important for bringing hope and opportunity to so many children who
have been so abused.”
Secretary Chao visited a Belgian Red Cross transit and rehabilitation
center for former child soldiers. The center provides a temporary home,
psychosocial support, and vocational training services to former child
soldiers. Partner organizations implement family tracing programs in
coordination with the Belgian Red Cross to locate separated family members and
provide referrals for the children to return home. The family tracing and
reunification process is ongoing; thus the number of children at the center is
constantly in flux. This is one of two Belgian Red Cross transit and
rehabilitation centers in Kinshasa.
There are an estimated 300,000 children around the world who are
involved in armed conflicts. These children are brutalized and forced to serve
as combatants, guards, spies, and even sex slaves. They are robbed of their
innocence, placed in harms way on a daily basis and deprived of any hope for a
normal life.
In May, Secretary Chao hosted the DOL-sponsored conference,
“Children in the Crossfire: Prevention and Rehabilitation if Child
Soldiers.” At the conference she announced a new $13 million Labor
Department global initiative to prevent and rehabilitate child soldiers,
including $7 million for the ILO’s International Program on the
Elimination of Child Labor, $3 million for the International Rescue Committee
in Uganda, and $3 million for a UNICEF project in Afghanistan.
Since 1995, the U.S. Department of Labor has received $313 million to
fund international projects aimed at preventing and eliminating the worst forms
of child labor. The department has already obligated $275 million of the money
received for child labor projects in more than 60 countries. These projects are
designed to remove children from hazardous work environments and exploitive
conditions, to provide educational opportunities for child laborers and to
conduct research and raise awareness about the child labor issue.
The United States is a signatory to ILO Convention No. 182, which
condemns the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict as one of
the worst forms of child labor and calls upon countries to assist one another
in eliminating all adverse forms of child labor as a matter of urgency.
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