LOC13:46
10:46 GMT
By Nawab Khan (with photos)
BRUSSELS, April 12 (KUNA) -- A top United Nations official is to travel to
Iraq soon to look into the issue of children being recruited by the militia
and also being used as suicide bombers.
"We are seeing this phenomenon of child suicide bombers beginning now in
Iraq. For the first time there are reports about that," the UN Secretary
General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika
Coomaraswamy, told KUNA in an exclusive interview in Brussels.
She noted also that there are hundreds of children in detention in jails
run by Iraqi as well as American authorities in Iraq.
Coomaraswamy said she hopes to visit Baghdad at the end of this month to
look at the situation more closely -- linked with the abuse of children.
"We would like that religious leaders of Iraq and the Muslim word, and one
of the things I hope to do is to lobby them, issue a fatwa (religious decree)
against using children in conflicts. This is one of the things we are hoping
to push for," she stressed. ,
Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka is an internationally known human rights
advocate. She was appointed to her UN post in 2005.
She was in Brussels on Friday to brief EU and Belgian officials about her
portfolio.
The UN official told KUNA that the issue of child soldier is still acute
and their number is estimated at 250,000.
There is a large number in Africa such as in the Congo, Sudan, Somalia, but
also in Asian countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Myanmar and
Afghanistan.
One of the first cases the International Criminal Court has filed was
against child recruitment in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A person
called Thomas Lubanga is charged of enlisting children under the age of 15 to
fight.
The UN Security Council passed a resolution in 2005 to set up a working
group to monitor the situation not only with regard to child soldiers but all
other grave violations against children in war time.
The resolution 1512 foresees targeted measures and sanctions against those
who perpetrate this crime. (end)
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