Child Soldiers Prevention Act

Security Council
Child Soldiers
United States
King High School

Background

Thousands of children are serving as soldiers in armed conflicts around the world. Boys and girls serve in government forces and armed opposition groups. They may fight as front-line combatants, suicide bombers, mine sweepers, sex slaves, and spies.Many are abducted or recruited by force, while others join voluntarily, believing that armed groups offer their best chance for survival. We are working to prevent the use of child soldiers and to hold accountable the people who send children to fight. It threatens the core of the United Nations, and the heart of our world's future: Children. The US Child Soldiers Prevention Act prohibits the US government from providing
The U.S. government currently provides military assistance to five of the six governments implicated in child soldier usage. From 2001 the USA contributed $34 million to support programs to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers and to demobilize and reintegrate child combatants, including $10 million through the US Agency for International Development and $24 million through the US Department of Labor. In 2008, Senators Richard Durbin and Sam Brownback introduced the Child Soldier Prevention Act, which is a bill to curtail U.S. military assistance to governments that fail to take steps to demobilize and stop recruiting children into the armed forces or government-supported militias. Under this bill, countries that take steps to demobilize child soldiers are eligible for certain forms of assistance to help professionalize their forces and ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not used to finance the exploitation of children in armed
In April 2007 the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 was introduced into Congress. It would restrict US military assistance to governments involved in the recruitment or use of child soldiers. In April 2007 the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law held a hearing to consider the Child Soldier Prevention Act, obstacles facing former child soldiers seeking asylum in the USA, and ways for the USA to address child recruiters from other countries who came to the USA. In October 2007 the Child Soldier Accountability Act was introduced into Congress. It would amend the US criminal code to allow the prosecution of individuals who have recruited or used child soldiers, whether in the United States or elsewhere. “The Child Soldiers Prevention Act can put real pressure on governments to stop using child soldiers,” Joe Becker said. “Obama needs to give fewer waivers to countries abusing their children this way.” On October 4, 2011, the Obama administration announced waivers to the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, allowing military assistance to Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Yemen despite the continued use of children in their armed forces.The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty that establishes the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of children. It also defines children as being under