Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers - Q2 2008

On 12 February 2008 local child protection organizations and hundreds of children in the DRC (including former child soldiers) joined thousands of other children and adults around the world for the launch of the Red Hand Day Campaign. The date marks the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, the international treaty to ban the use of child soldiers. To express solidarity in ending the recruitment and use of child soldiers, children are marking their handprint in red paint, writing a personal message, and submitting their “red hands” to the campaign. The goal is to collect over one-million hands in total.

The objective of the campaign is to strengthen international commitment and efforts to end the use of children in armed conflict. Human Rights Watch – New York has joined the effort to coordinate the presentation of one million red hands to UN Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict on Red Hand Day 2009.  Children representing various regions of the world will participate in the presentation of the “red hands” to the UN Secretary-General to emphasize the need for international action to end the use of child soldiers. Coalition member organization Terres des Hommes has taken the lead on this campaign and is collecting all the red hands. For more information please visit www.redhandday.org. 

Bringing communities together to support an end to child soldiering

Elsewhere, local NGOs throughout eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have hosted public rallies bringing together child rights advocates, children, local authorities and traditional leaders to increase awareness of the illegality of child recruitment and use. In Bukavu, a street demonstration was organized and key messages broadcast on twelve radio and TV stations. In Goma, north Kivu (a province affected by new recruitment of children by government forces and armed groups in 2007-8) eleven child protection organizations and over 50 children (including many former child soldiers – both boys and girls) met to review the situation and listen to the testimony of a former child soldier. The activity culminated in children creating red hands to contribute to the international campaign. In Uvira, child protection organizations hosted a public awareness-raising event in Sange, where armed groups continue to recruit children.

National level coverage 

The Great Lakes program manager participated in a radio discussion of child soldiering commemorating Red Hand Day broadcast on UN Radio OKAPI. The speakers included the head of the Congolese government body responsible for the demilitarization, demobilization and reintegration of children (UE-PNDDR). UE-PNDDR has since launched a national campaign called “Zero Child Soldiers.” The campaign, launched on 20 June 2008, pledges to end child soldiering in DRC by the end of 2009.