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OPA News Release: [12/17/2003]
Contact Name: Mike
Biddle
Phone Number: (202) 693-4676
U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao Launches Project to
Combat Use of Child Soldiers
KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO—U.S. Secretary of
Labor Elaine L. Chao helped launch the Global Child Soldiers program, a project
on the Elimination of Child Labor (ILO/IPEC) today. The launch was part of
Secretary Chao’s four-day visit to Africa to highlight the United
States’ 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.
“The forced recruitment of children as combatants is one of the
worst forms of child labor and must be eliminated,” said Secretary Chao.
“Here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, encouraging progress has
been made in demobilizing and repatriating child soldiers. Our hearts go out to
these survivors, many of whom have very little hope of building a better life
without our collective help.”
Funded by the U.S. Department of Labor, the $7 million ILO/IPEC Global
Child Soldiers program is part of a new $13 million global initiative Secretary
Chao announced at the May 2003 Department of Labor sponsored conference,
“Children in the Crossfire: Prevention and Rehabilitation of Child
Soldiers.” That meeting brought together 500 representatives from nations
and agencies committed to ending the use of children as soldiers.
Besides the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the program will
develop comprehensive strategies to help former child soldiers in Burundi,
Rwanda, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Columbia. It builds upon and expands a
previous DOL-funded project that gathered information and considered strategies
for addressing the problem of child soldiers in Central Africa. An additional
$3 million has been provided to a child soldiers project in Uganda to be
implemented by the International Rescue Committee.
According to conservative estimates, more than 300,000 children have
been forcibly recruited to fight by government-sponsored armed forces or by
other armed groups in more than 30 conflicts around the globe.
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. The Convention calls upon countries to assist
one another in eliminating all adverse forms of child labor as a matter of
urgency.
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