[Senate Hearing 110-176]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 110-176
CASUALTIES OF WAR: CHILD SOLDIERS AND THE LAW
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE LAW
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 24, 2007
__________
Serial No. J-110-29
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois JOHN CORNYN, Texas
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Michael O'Neill, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois, Chairman
EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware JON KYL, Arizona
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN CORNYN, Texas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
Joseph Zogby, Chief Counsel
Mary Chesser, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Brownback, Hon. Sam, a U.S. Senator from the State of Kansas,
prepared statement............................................. 56
Coburn, Hon. Tom, a U.S. Senator from the State of Oklahoma...... 4
prepared statement........................................... 70
Durbin, Hon. Richard J., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Illinois....................................................... 1
prepared statement........................................... 73
Feingold, Hon. Russell D., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Wisconsin...................................................... 4
prepared statement........................................... 76
WITNESSES
Beah, Ishmael, Author, New York, New York........................ 6
Hughes, Anwen, Senior Counsel, Refugee Protection Program, Human
Rights First, New York, New York............................... 13
Mettimano, Joseph, Director, Public Policy and Advocacy, World
Vision, Washington, D.C........................................ 16
Roth, Kenneth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, New York,
New York....................................................... 11
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Responses of Ishmael Beah to questions submitted by Senator
Durbin......................................................... 28
Responses of Anwen Hughes to questions submitted by Senators
Coburn and Feingold............................................ 30
Responses of Joseph Mettimano to questions submitted by Senator
Coburn......................................................... 34
Responses of Kenneth Roth to questions submitted by Senators
Durbin, Coburn and Feingold.................................... 36
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Amnesty International USA, New York, New York, statement......... 42
Beah, Ishmael, Author, New York, New York, statement............. 49
Center for Defense Information, Rachel Stohl, Senior Analyst,
Washington, D.C., statement.................................... 57
Center for International Human Rights, David Scheffer, Director,
Chicago, Illinois, statement................................... 63
Hughes, Anwen, Senior Counsel, Refugee Protection Program, Human
Rights First, New York, New York, statement.................... 78
Mettimano, Joseph, Director, Public Policy and Advocacy, World
Vision, Washington, D.C., statement............................ 87
Roth, Kenneth, Executive Director, Human Rights Watch, New York,
New York, statement............................................ 94
CASUALTIES OF WAR: CHILD SOLDIERS AND THE LAW
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TUESDAY, APRIL 24, 2007
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in
room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard J.
Durbin, Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senators Durbin, Feingold, Whitehouse, and Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN, A U.S. SENATOR
FROM THE STATE OF ILLINOIS
Chairman Durbin. This hearing will come to order. This is
the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. Our hearing today
is entitled ``Casualties of War: Child Soldiers and the Law.''
In Italy, long ago, a young boy who followed the knights
into battle on foot was known as ``enfante,'' collectively as
the ``enfanteria.'' It was this Italian ``enfanteria'' which
became our English word ``infantry.''
Good morning and welcome to ``Casualties of War: Child
Soldiers and the Law,'' the third hearing of the Subcommittee
on Human Rights and the Law. After a few opening remarks, I
will recognize other Senators in attendance for opening
statements, and then we will turn to our witnesses.
This is the first time in Senate history there has been a
Subcommittee focused on human rights, and this is the first
ever congressional hearing on the urgent human rights crisis of
child soldiers. That fact alone demonstrates the need for this
new Subcommittee.
As this hearing's title suggests, during times of war both
the rule of law and children are victims. There is a clear
legal prohibition on recruiting and using child soldiers, and
yet around the world, hundreds of thousands of boys and girls
are used as combatants, porters, human mine detectors, and sex
slaves. While most serve in rebel or paramilitary groups, some
government forces use child soldiers as well. In countries like
Burma, Uganda, and Colombia, children's health and lives are
endangered, and their childhoods are sacrificed.
I would like to begin this hearing with a brief video that
will provide some background on the child soldiers crisis. Look
very carefully at the faces of these combat-hardened soldiers.
[DVD played]
Mr. Beah. ``When the war began, everything changed. I lost
my immediate family, you know, which is sad. They were killed
in the war.''
Ms. Becker. ``There are many different ways that children
end up as solders. Some of them were literally recruited by
force and taken at gunpoint or kidnapped from their homes in
the middle of the night. Other children join in groups out of
desperation.''
Mr. Beah. ``In the beginning, it seemed, you know, it was a
place to go for safety. They provided us food, shelter, some
basic necessities, and we helped in the kitchen. But our
relationship quickly changed to being forced in this war. There
was a constant awareness about, you were either in the war
front fighting or they were killing somebody in front of you to
further traumatize you. It's not just a child carrying a gun,
that's a child soldier.''
Ms. Becker. ``Child soldiers can include kids who are
working as messengers, as guards, as spies. They could be cooks
in a military camp. But too often, child soldiers are actually
combatants on the front lines of combat. They could include an
8-year-old recruited by paramilitaries in Colombia. It includes
young boys in Burma, recruited, you know, into the National
Army. It could be girls recruited by the Lord's Resistance Army
in northern Uganda. For a lot of girls, the burden is an extra
one. They are not only used as combatants and for all the
support roles that boys normally fill, but oftentimes they're
sexually exploited.''
Mr. Beah. ``It's not accepted to recruit children at all.
As a child, we are caught up in this madness. It limits you
from knowing yourself as a human being and it causes you
suffering, basically. It just brings suffering to everyone.''
Ms. Becker. ``Currently in the world there about 20
countries where children are actively fighting. In 10 of those
countries, governments are involved either by recruiting
children directly into their own armed forces or by supporting
militias or paramilitaries that use children. Of these 10
countries, 9 of them are currently receiving U.S. military aid.
This is an opportunity for the U.S. to use its leverage and its
influence as a military super-power to bring pressure against
these governments to ensure that they take the action that is
needed to keep children out of their forces and to demobilize
children in their ranks.''
Mr. Beah. ``These are not some kind of other human beings.
They're the same as anyone in America, in Europe, anywhere.
They're children whose lives are being taken away most times,
some of them whose childhood is taken away from them, and
that's--they can be--you know, things can be done to prevent
that.''
Ms. Becker. ``It has to be crystal clear that using
children in warfare is unacceptable, and that anyone who does
it is going to have to pay a price.''
[end video]
Chairman Durbin. Today we will discuss the tragedy of child
soldiers and why the law has failed so many young people around
the world.
Cicero wrote, ``In times of war, the law falls silent.''
The American legal system rejects that notion. There is no
wartime exception to our Constitution. International human
rights law, created primarily by Americans and based largely on
American legal principles, take the same position. Fundamental
rights must be protected, even during wars or other armed
conflicts.
Yet, so often in times of war or perceived threat, human
rights are sacrificed. No better example exists than the
tragedy of child soldiers. The law provides special protections
to children, the most vulnerable members of our society, but
during wars they are often the most exploited.
Over 110 countries, including the United States, have
ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights
of Child, which prohibits the recruitment and use of child
soldiers. But if the law is not enforced, it is meaningless.
This Subcommittee has found similar problems when it comes to
genocide and human trafficking. When there is no accountability
for violating the law, governments and rebel forces can violate
human rights with impunity.
During today's hearing, we will discuss legal options for
holding accountable those who recruit or use child soldiers.
The Special Court for Sierra Leone is prosecuting nine people
for using child soldiers, and the International Criminal
Court's first prosecution is against Thomas Lubanga of the
Democratic Republic of Congo for recruiting and using child
soldiers. These are positive developments, but they pale in
comparison to the scale of the child soldier crisis. The
average perpetrator runs very little risk of being prosecuted.
One option we will discuss today is for national courts to
play a greater role in prosecuting perpetrators. I am sorry to
say that recruiting and using child soldiers is not a crime
under U.S. law, so the U.S. Government is unable to prosecute
perpetrators who are found in our country.
Immigration law is another important tool for holding
individual perpetrators accountable. Today we will discuss
whether the U.S. Government has sufficient authority to deport
or deny admission to an individual who has recruited or used
child soldiers.
Governments must also be held accountable. That is why
Senator Sam Brownback and I have introduced the Child Soldiers
Prevention Act of 2007. This legislation would limit U.S.
military assistance to countries clearly identified in the
State Department's Human Rights Report as recruiting or using
child soldiers.
Our bill would ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not
used to support this abhorrent practice by government or
government-sanctioned military and paramilitary organizations.
U.S. military assistance could continue under this bill, but it
would be used only to remedy the problem by helping countries
successfully demobilize their child soldiers and
professionalize their forces.
We must work to eliminate the use of child soldiers, but as
long as the practice persists, we must also ensure that the law
facilitates and encourages the rehabilitation and reintegration
of these young people back into civilian life.
Sometimes the law contributes to the stigmatization of
former child soldiers. For example, there are provisions in our
immigration laws which brand former child soldiers as
terrorists, preventing them from obtaining asylum or refugee
status in the U.S. We must give the Government flexibility to
consider the unique mitigating circumstances facing these
children and allow child soldiers to raise such claims when
they seek safe haven in our country. We also should support
programs that provide psychological services, educational and
vocational training, and other assistance to these traumatized
young people.
As I have said before, this Subcommittee will focus on
legislation, not lamentation. I look forward to working with
the members of the Subcommittee to ensure that our laws treat
former child soldiers fairly, and hold accountable those who
recruit and use them, and that these laws are enforced.
We have to prove Cicero wrong. Even during times of war,
the law should never fall silent for the most vulnerable among
us--our children.
[The prepared statement of Senator Durbin appears as a
submission for the record.]
I would now like to recognize Senator Coburn, the Ranking
Member of the Committee.
STATEMENT OF HON. TOM COBURN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
OKLAHOMA
Senator Coburn. Senator Durbin, first of all, let me thank
you for your leadership, not just in this area but in others. I
truly appreciate it. I have a statement for the record, and I
would like to have it submitted.
I have read the summaries and the excerpt on Ishmael. It is
very touching. It is tragic. You display leadership beyond all
comprehension in your valor and your courage, and I commend
you.
I also have in the back of my mind, as a medical missionary
in northern Iraq, seeing 9-year-old boys carrying AK-47s. So it
is just not in the areas where we have outlined it, but it is
in a lot of other areas of the world.
Again, I would re-emphasize my compliment to you, Mr.
Chairman, for your leadership in this, on genocide, and other
areas. I believe you are going to make a difference, and I am
here to help you do that.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Senator Coburn appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Coburn.
I would like to recognize Senator Feingold.
STATEMENT OF HON. RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF WISCONSIN
Senator Feingold. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I also
thank the Ranking Member. I want to thank you for holding this
important hearing and for introducing, along with our colleague
Sam Brownback. the Child Soldiers Prevention Act. This
legislation is a critical step toward ending the use of child
soldiers around the globe by prohibiting U.S. military
assistance to countries recruiting or using child soldiers in
hostilities.
I would also like to thank all the witnesses here today who
have experienced or witnessed what child soldiers are forced to
endure and who each devote and have already devoted tremendous
time and energy to fighting injustice. Thank you for coming to
teach us about this tragic practice, one that has gone on far
too long in too many places.
The Child Soldiers Prevention Act takes a multifaceted
approach to dealing with this problem and encourages more
robust programming for the demobilization, disarmament, and
rehabilitation of child soldiers in the communities from which
they come. I am please to cosponsor this bill because I feel
very strongly that the United States must do more to end the
exploitation of children, whatever form this abuse takes and
wherever it occurs. By helping to ensure that U.S. military
assistance is only provided to countries whose policies respect
human rights, this bill will send a strong message that the use
of child soldiers is not acceptable.
The exploitation of children violates the most basic human
rights of one society's most vulnerable populations, and yet
for far too long, children have been not only the passive
victims of military campaigns, but also active if unwilling
participants. In Burma, Laos, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and
particularly in African countries like Uganda, Sudan,
Democratic Republic of Congo, children as young as 8 are
routinely abducted and forced to participate in acts of extreme
violence, sometimes against their own families. They are forced
to carry out murders, mutilations, and other human rights
abuses, even as abuses are inflicted upon them.
Many child soldiers are also subject to coerced drug
addiction, physiological manipulations, and sexual abuse. At
least one-third of the estimated 300,000 child soldiers today
are girls who are often enslaved for sexual purposes by militia
commanders.
Even when hostilities cease, these children continue to
suffer the loss of their childhood, loss of their connection to
their families and to their communities and to the tools that
are necessary to pursue a nonviolent life. Often uneducated,
traumatized, and stigmatized, many of these young people remain
trapped in cycles of brutality and abuse long after the
militias are disbanded.
In the past two decades, as the Chairman has indicated, the
use of child soldiers has gone from being merely morally
reprehensible to being a criminal violation of international
law. The U.S. has demonstrated its commitment to ending the use
of child soldiers around the world by ratifying and
implementing the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the
Rights of the Child, on the involvement of children in armed
conflict, and last winter, Congo's National Assembly
transferred a former militia leader to the International
Criminal Court to face charges of recruitment of child
soldiers.
Next month--and this is the case that I am most familiar
with, having been there and watched this, the case of Sierra
Leone--the Special Court of Sierra Leone is expected to deliver
the first two convictions on charges of enlisting children to
actively participate in hostilities, which the Court considers
``a serious violation of international humanitarian law.''
These are all important steps across multiple levels toward
ending impunity for this reprehensible practice. The
conscription and abuse of child soldiers is not new, but a
growing awareness of what these young people are forced to
endure and the lasting damage cause requires that we work
diligently here at home as well as in the international
community to monitor and end the use of child soldiers, hold
governments accountable for their violations, and improve
programs of prevention and rehabilitation.
The use of child soldiers poses a threat to the stability
and security of communities, countries, and society at large.
Any of these abuses should be a priority for the U.S. and for
governments around the world, and, again, I sincerely thank
you, Mr. Chairman, for your leadership on this and the bill and
holding this important hearing to raise awareness and encourage
action to protect children around the world.
[The prepared statement of Senator Feingold appears as a
submission for the record.]
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you, Senator Feingold.
I would like to ask the witnesses to please stand and be
sworn. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the
testimony you are about to give before the Committee will be
the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help
you God?
Mr. Beah. I do.
Mr. Roth. I do.
Mr. Hughes. I do.
Mr. Mettimano. I do.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you. Let the record reflect that the
four witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Our first witness, Ishmael Beah, is the author of ``A Long
Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier.'' ``A Long Way Gone'' is
a No. 1 New York Times best seller, currently featured at your
local Starbucks. For those who have not read this important
book, I urge you to do so.
Mr. Beah is a former child soldier, but he is much more
than a victim or a survivor. He had the courage, as Senator
Coburn has said so well, and the resiliency of spirit to share
his horrific experiences with the world. He has transcended
these experiences to become one of the world's best-known and
most effective anti-child soldier advocates.
Mr. Beah was born in Sierra Leone in 1980. He moved to the
United States in 1998 and finished his last 2 years of high
school at the United Nations International School in New York.
In 2004, he graduated from Oberlin College with a B.A. in
political science. Mr. Beah is a member of the Human Rights
Watch Children's Rights Division Advisory Committee. He has
spoken before the United Nations, the Council on Foreign
Relations, and a lot of other places.
Mr. Beah, thank you for taking time off from your
successful book tour to come here. It is this Committee's
distinct honor to have you with us today. Please proceed with
your opening statement.
STATEMENT OF ISHMAEL BEAH, AUTHOR, ``A LONG WAY GONE: MEMOIRS
OF A BOY SOLDIER,'' NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mr. Beah. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. Good
morning to Ranking Member Coburn and Mr. Feingold as well and
members of the Subcommittee and everyone present here.
I am here today to tell you about my experiences as one of
the thousands of children who was forced to fight as a child
soldier in the Sierra Leone civil war. It isn't easy for me to
recount these experiences, so I hope that you can give me your
undivided attention. As I speak to you, there are thousands of
children from ages 8 to 17 in Burma, Sri Lanka, Congo, Uganda,
Ivory Coast, Colombia, just to name a few places, that are
being forced to fight and lose their childhoods and their
families. They are maimed and they lose their humanity, and
these are the fortunate ones. Those who are less fortunate are
killed in the senseless wars of adults. I want you to think of
them and to simultaneously think about your children between
those ages and whether you would want them to be subjected to
the kinds of suffering, pain, and victimization that I and
others underwent that I am about to describe to you.
I was 11 years old when the war began in Sierra Leone.
Prior to that I had a normal life; I went to school, played
soccer, went swimming, and did my homework. But after the war
started, I remember seeing a tide of people carrying their
belongings and their malnourished children walking through the
streets of my town every morning. They were clearly on a path
to somewhere else. At the time I couldn't comprehend what made
those families walk hundreds of miles from their homes, and why
they were still terrified and preferred sleeping in the bushes
instead of spending the night in my town. War simply wasn't my
reality at that time.
A year later, following the attack on my town and having
been separated from family, my older brother, a friend, and
myself were in Mattru Jong, a neighboring town near my home
where we had been waiting for news of members of our families,
when we first heard a single gunshot. A few minutes later, we
heard many more gunshots coming from all around us.
Instinctively we began running. The gunshots made it difficult
for us to think, and there was chaos in town as people ran,
screaming and trampling whoever was in their way.
As we ran from the sound of the gunshots, we saw children
who were alone, shirtless, following the crowd, screaming and
crying for their parents. We saw mothers wailing for their lost
children with so much pain in their voices that I felt my veins
tighten and my skin twitch. But all of their cries were in
vain. To stop and help someone was asking for death as the
rebels were firing at civilians to stop us from leaving town.
Each time the gunshots intensified, my body trembled. A woman
running ahead of me was clearly unaware of the trail of blood
that followed her--the child she carried on her back had been
shot and killed. There were bullets coming from everywhere,
every direction, and people were struck down in front of me as
I ran for my life.
I was 12 years old and was on the run for several months
after the war reached me. I saw dead bodies strewn by the sides
of roads, witnessed killings, and passed through abandoned
villages where the air smelled of blood, and where vultures and
dogs feasted on dead bodies. I had been separated from my older
brother during an attack and was now with a group of friends
from school.
The news that my family was in the village where I was
headed was the only thing that kept me alive during that
period. Knowing they were alive and well gave me the strength
to continue running, even at times when I would go for a week
without eating anything. But when I finally made it to the
outskirts of that village, I found that the rebels had arrived
before me. They attacked and burned the village to the ground.
They murdered all of my family and everyone who was there.
Some of the people were shot in the head; others tied and
burned alive. Some women and children were locked in houses
that were set on fire. Later, after the rebels had left, I
began walking in the ruins of the village. But I only went a
few paces before my knees gave up under me and I fell to the
ground. I was in too much pain and shock to cry; I felt myself
beginning to harden. I had lost the strength to carry on. I
felt that there was no reason to stay alive anymore.
Not long afterwards, I found myself in a village occupied
by the Sierra Leonean Army. At first, my friends and I helped
in the kitchen to cook for the soldiers. They gave us food, a
place to sleep, some basic necessities, and a feeling of
security. But after a while, the soldiers announced that they
wanted to recruit more able bodies as they had lost many men to
the rebels who constantly tried to attack the village we were
staying in. We were told that our responsibilities as boys were
to fight in this war or we would be killed. I was 13 years old.
Neither my friends nor I had any choice. It was either join or
be killed. We had no family and no other means of survival. We
were forcibly recruited and taught how to use the AK-47s, M-
16s, machine guns, G3s, rocket propelled grenades, et cetera,
for less than a week, and then we were sent into battle. Many
of my friends were shot dead in front of me as many of us
didn't know how to use the guns very well and were paralyzed by
fear.
I will never forget my first day in battle. We were led
into the forest by the adult soldiers to ambush the rebels. My
squad had boys who were as young as 7, who were dragging guns
that were taller than them as we walked to the front lines. We
formed an ambush by a swamp and waited for the rebels. Upon
their arrival, the lieutenant ordered us to open fire. I
couldn't shoot my gun at first. But as I lay there watching my
friends getting killed, the 7-year-old boys crying for their
mothers as life departed their little bodies, and the blood
from my friends who had died covering my hands and face, I
began shooting. Something inside me shifted and I lost
compassion for anyone. After that day, killing became as easy
as drinking water. I had lost all sense of remorse.
Our commanders gave us drugs--marijuana, cocaine, and Brown
Brown: a concoction of cocaine and gunpowder--before battles to
anesthetize us to what we had to do. They showed us war movies
like ``Rambo: First Blood'' to fuel our thirst for war and our
sense of invincibility. There was also tremendous coercion
wherein if the child didn't carry out orders from the
commander, that child was killed. The tools used to force us to
commit atrocities were the guns. There were too many of them,
and they came from all parts of the world. There were M-16s,
which are guns primarily made in the U.S; G3s, German weapons;
and AK-47s, just to name a few.
For over 2 years, all I did was take drugs, fight, and kill
or be killed. At the time it felt as though there was no way to
stop. I never imagined that I would be able to leave that life
behind, as I had been cutoff from all other realities except
for that of the war.
But I did get out of that madness with the help of Children
Associated with War, which was sponsored by UNICEF and other
nongovernmental organizations. I wouldn't be alive today if it
weren't for the presence of nongovernmental organizations that
believed that children like myself, due to our emotional and
psychological immaturity, had been brainwashed and forced to be
killers, and above all, that we could be rehabilitated and
reintegrated into society. Healing from the war was a long-term
process that was difficult but very possible. It required
perseverance, patience, sensitivity, and a selfless compassion
and commitment from the staff members at my healing center.
Effective rehabilitation of children is in itself a preventive
measure, and this should be the focus, not punitive measures
against children that have no beneficial outcome for the child
and society.
I and many others are living proof that it is possible for
children who have undergone and experienced such horrors to
regain their lives and become ambassadors of peace. My
experience and those of other survivors exemplifies the
resilience of children and the capability of the human spirit
to outlive life's worst circumstances, if given a chance and
the right care and support.
In the United States, many people criticize the United
Nations, its affiliates, and generally NGO's. For some of us
these are the only organizations that are willing to speak for
our plights, to raise awareness about our sufferings, and to
help us recover when no one comes to our aid. Their work must
be strengthened rather than chastised.
In, addition it is important and life saving not only to
have international legal standards that ban the use of children
in war, but they must be strengthened and supported by nations
affected and those not affected by these appalling tragedies.
With the presence and enforcement of these legal standards,
United Nations and NGO workers will have the courage and
conviction to confront commanders who use children in war and
ask them to release those young fighters. If such legal
standards hadn't been in place, I wouldn't be here. I would be
dead. But the problem continues, which is why I urge you to
join in prevention efforts by supporting the prosecution of
those who recruit children; strengthening international laws to
ban the use and sale of small arms, a good number coming from
the United States, that end up in the hands of children; and,
finally, condemning and curtailing all support to nations that
recruit children or allow such practices to occur on their
territory.
One thing that history has taught us is that when we ignore
such problems as the use of children in war, they become bigger
and more complex problems that later affect us and that we then
might be unable to solve. If you do not help these children
now, they will grow into adults who will become the leaders of
their nations who will have no understanding of ethical and
moral standards, and, ladies and gentlemen, whether you like it
or not, your children, the future leaders of this country, will
have to face them and deal with them.
When you go home tonight to your children, your cousins,
and your grandchildren and watch them carrying out their
various childhood activities, I want you to remember that at
that same moment, there are countless children elsewhere who
are being killed, injured, exposed to extreme violence, and
forced to serve in armed groups, including girls who are
raped--leading some to have babies of commanders--all of them
between the ages of 8 and 17. As you watch your loved ones,
those children you adore most, ask yourselves whether you would
want these kinds of suffering for them. If you don't, then you
must stop this from happening to other children around the
world whose lives and humanity are as important and of the same
value as all children everywhere.
In conclusion, I would like to add that yesterday I was
involved for the first time in an aspect of advocacy for former
child soldiers in a way I have not been before. I testified in
an immigration court hearing in New York City on behalf of a
former child soldier from Cote d'Ivoire. I was called as a
witness both because of my personal experience as a child
soldier as well as my knowledge on the general conditions child
soldiers face all over the world.
Similar to the stories of many former child soldiers, the
young man on whose behalf I testified has real promise. I know
from my work with the attorneys on his case that he is a highly
intelligent and very decent person, despite what he was forced
to participate in during the conflict in his home country.
Yesterday was one of the few bright days this person has
had in many years. The judge granted his asylum claim because
of the position taken by this country's own government, though
it is far from certain that this former child soldier is in
store for a happy ending here in the United States. Sadly, and
really, inexplicably, the Department of Homeland Security
already indicated it very well may appeal the judge's grant of
asylum. For the entire case, the Department of Homeland
Security has maintained that this young man, who at age 15 was
forcibly taken by rebels who fed him massive amounts of drugs
and political rhetoric, while compelling him at, in essence,
gunpoint to train and take up arms, that this young man is
actually himself a persecutor. In taking this extreme position,
the Government has ignored the international consensus that
these children generally are victims, not persecutors. And
because the Government has taken this view, this young man was
detained for almost the entire 6 months since he came to the
U.S. seeking asylum. He was kept in an adult facility outside
of New York City and brought to court in chains and handcuffs.
I saw this for myself yesterday. He was treated like a
criminal. His decriminalization, if you can call it that, was
undertaken in a jail in the U.S. His crime--he wanted to escape
a war that destroyed his family and his childhood.
I mention this case because I encourage the members of the
Committee to consider the wider scope of the issue of child
soldiers. I, of course, applaud the Committee for its efforts
and interest in this area. We need, though, the most holistic
approach possible if the children are to be saved. Not only do
we need to pressure governments to immediately cease its use of
child soldiers, we need to also convince our own Government to
provide the humanity so sorely lacking by not detaining those
former child soldiers fortunate enough to come to the U.S. And
we certainly should ensure that the U.S. Government does not
accuse these victims, such as the young man who will now have
to fight this appeal and continue to live in fear of being sent
back to a war zone.
I thank you very much for your time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Beah appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Mr. Beah, thank you very much for your
testimony. We will have other statements from members of the
panel, and then we will ask a few questions.
Mr. Kenneth Roth is the next witness, He is the Executive
Director of Human Rights Watch, a post he has held since 1993.
From 1987 to 1993, Mr. Roth served as Deputy Director of Human
Rights Watch. Previously, he was a Federal prosecutor in the
U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York,
and the Iran-contra investigation of Washington. He worked in
private practice as a litigator, and graduated from Yale Law
School and Brown University. Mr. Roth was drawn to human rights
causes in part by his father's experience fleeing Nazi Germany
in 1938.
Mr. Roth, thank you very much for joining us, and we look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF KENNETH ROTH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS
WATCH, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mr. Roth. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Ranking
Member Coburn. Human Rights Watch welcomes the creation of this
standing Senate Committee focused on human rights and the law,
and applauds your vision in particular, Senator Durbin, for
recognizing the important contribution that this Committee can
make. We are glad to help in launching the Committee and its
important work. I also want to thank you for focusing on the
very important issue of the exploitation of children as
soldiers around the world and for giving Human Rights Watch the
opportunity to address the Committee today.
I would like to focus my testimony on two aspects of the
child soldier issue: first, the importance of prosecuting
people who recruit or use child soldiers; and, second,
opportunities for the United States to use its military
assistance program as leverage to discourage the recruitment or
use of child soldiers.
In the last decade, significant progress has been made in
establishing criminal responsibility for the recruitment or use
of child soldiers. A prohibition against recruiting and using
children under the age of 15 in hostilities was first codified
in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.
Then, in 1998, governments negotiating the so-called Rome
Statute of the International Criminal Court recognized that the
prohibition had achieved the status of customary international
law. They agreed that the conscription, enlistment, or use in
hostilities of children under the age of 15 should be
considered a war crime under the Court's jurisdiction, whether
carried out by members of national armed forces or by non-state
armed groups.
In May 2004, international jurisprudence on this issue
advanced further when the Appeals Chamber of the UN-backed
Special Court for Sierra Leone ruled that the prohibition on
the recruitment and use of children under the age of 15 had
crystallized as customary international law prior to 1996, and
the Court found that the individuals responsible bear criminal
responsibility for their acts.
With these developments, individual commanders now have
begun to be prosecuted for the crime of recruiting and using
child soldiers. As you mentioned, Senator Durbin, the use of
child soldiers is included in the indictments against each of
the nine defendants currently being tried by the Special Court
for Sierra Leone, including former Liberian President Charles
Taylor. The International Criminal Court also recently
initiated prosecution of Thomas Lubanga of the Democratic
Republic of Congo for the recruitment and use of child
soldiers, paving the way for the first ICC war crime trial. In
addition, the ICC has indicted the leadership of Uganda's
Lord's Resistance Army for the same offense.
As trials proceed and convictions are handed down, these
prosecutions will send a clear message that commanders cannot
recruit children without serious consequences. Even though no
deterrent is ever perfect, these prosecutions offer the
possibility of saving substantial numbers of children from the
horror of combat and military recruitment.
Unfortunately, few countries have criminalized the
recruitment or use of child soldiers under their national
criminal codes. The U.S. Criminal Code, for example, does not
address the issue, even of an individual who has recruited or
used child soldiers in another country and then seeks safe
haven in the United States.
Mr. Chairman, I urge this Committee to consider action to
amend the U.S. Criminal Code to make the recruitment or use of
children in violation of international law a punishable crime,
whether committed here or abroad, and to establish jurisdiction
over U.S. citizens or non-nationals present in the United
States who commit this crime.
Precedent for such an approach already exists in Federal
law, including the torture provisions in the U.S. Criminal Code
and the Genocide Accountability Act, which you yourself
introduced and that was adopted by the Senate earlier this
year. Both of these measures allow for the prosecution of
either U.S. citizens or non-nationals present in the United
States, even if their crimes were committed outside of the
United States.
The second issue I would like to address is the opportunity
that the U.S. Government has to use its military assistance
programs as leverage to end other governments' recruitment or
use of child soldiers.
According to the most recent State Department Country
Reports, of the 20 countries around the world where children
are currently fighting as soldiers, governments are implicated
in 10. For example, in Colombia, paramilitaries with
longstanding ties to Colombian military units recruit children
as young as 8 to fight against the guerrillas, sometimes
forcing them to mutilate and kill captured rebels.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Human Rights watch
found just last month that hundreds of children had been
recruited by the newly formed Congolese army brigades in North
Kivu and are being deployed to the front line in operations
against local armed groups.
In Uganda, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has abducted
thousands of children into its ranks, but children have also
been found in the ranks of the Ugandan national army. Last
year, the U.N. reported that more than a thousand children had
been recruited into government-sponsored local defense units in
Uganda's northern districts.
In Sri Lanka, as the civil war has escalated over the past
year, an armed group linked to the government, known as the
Karuna Group, has abducted hundreds of boys to fight the rebel
Tamil Tigers, who also continue to recruit children.
Mr. Chairman, Human Rights Watch strongly supports the
Child Soldiers Prevention Act of 2007, introduced last week by
you and by Senator Brownback. The Act would restrict U.S.
military assistance to governments that have been identified by
the State Department's own reporting as using child soldiers,
whether in their own armed forces or by supporting
paramilitaries or militias that themselves use child soldiers.
While the amount of U.S. military assistance is often not
large, the loss of U.S. military backing would be a powerful
political blow to these governments and a strong motivator to
end any involvement in child recruitment.
Although many child soldiers are found in rebel armies that
receive no U.S. support, there is little hope of curbing child
recruitment by rebel armies as long as they can justify their
use of children by pointing to child recruitment by
governments. The stronger we can make the international norm
against the use of child soldiers, the harder it will be for
rebel groups to pay the political price of using them. That
norm-building process must begin with governments.
In conclusion, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act would
provide a powerful incentive to governments to end the
recruitment and use of child soldiers and to demobilize
children from their armed forces. It would also assure the
American people that U.S. tax dollars are not supporting the
exploitation of children as soldiers.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Roth appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thank you very much, Mr. Roth.
Our next witness is Anwen Hughes, who is an attorney with
Human Rights First. She is senior counsel of that
organization's Refugee Protection Program. She helps oversee
Human Rights First's pro bono representation for indigents
seeking asylum. Previously she was a staff attorney for Legal
Services in New Jersey, where she represented recipients of
public benefits and coordinated legal services for the elderly.
Ms. Hughes received her J.D. from Yale and her B.A. from Yale
as well.
Ms. Hughes?
STATEMENT OF ANWEN HUGHES, SENIOR COUNSEL, REFUGEE PROTECTION
PROGRAM, HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Ms. Hughes. Thank you very much. Chairman Durbin, Ranking
Member Coburn, and members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
inviting me here today to offer the views of Human Rights First
on how our immigration laws are treating former child soldiers
and those who conscript them. On behalf of Human Rights First,
I also want to thank you, Chairman Durbin, for your leadership
in the creation of this new Subcommittee which acts as an
important signal that this country understands its human rights
treaty obligations as part of our law.
There has been testimony already today on ongoing efforts
and progress that is being made to prohibit the use of child
soldiers and to hold accountable those who abuse the rights of
children. And with the possible exception of people who
conscript children for service into their own national armies,
our immigration laws also provide ample basis for excluding
those who recruit or use child soldiers in violation of
international law. That is the good news.
The bad news is that those same provisions, which are bars
based on very broad definitions of terrorist activity and
terrorist organizations, are also being interpreted to exclude
from protection children who escape from being soldiers and
seek safety in the United States. Even as we work to prohibit
and to condemn the use of child soldiers as a violation of
children's rights, our immigration laws are being interpreted
to target the victims of those same abuses and exclude them
from protection.
Our organization provides legal representation to refugees
seeking asylum in this country, and I remember in the late
1990's interviewing several young people who, while still
teenagers, had been taken captive by the RUF in Sierra Leone.
This was the rebel army there at the time. In some cases, these
rebels had killed the children's entire families before
abducting the kids, and when they managed to escape from the
rebels, the children were targeted by terrific civilians and
also by government forces as suspected rebels. Many people in
this situation fled into neighboring Guinea, but then Guinea
turned on its refugees, and some of them, with nowhere else to
turn, fled to the United States.
At that time, some were granted asylum here and were able
to begin new lives. But they would not be so lucky now. These
kids' forced service to the rebels consisted of hard labor for
the most part, carrying heavy crates on forced marches through
the forest, and in the case of girls, getting raped. But even
as the international community has worked to prohibit the use
of child soldiers, not only in active combat but also as cooks,
as cleaners, as porters, as sex slaves and so on, our
definition of ``terrorist activity'' under the immigration laws
has expanded to include all of these activities, so that even
kids who are lucky enough to be forced only into non-violent
activity are now being tagged with the same terrorist label as
their former captors. This is psychologically harmful to all
refugees, but particularly to child soldiers, who often face
the same stigma in their home communities.
The second problem former child soldiers face is that the
Government agencies that decide asylum and refugee claims, as
in the case that Ishmael was referring to earlier, are failing
to recognize any defenses or exceptions to this wildly
expanding statute. So the children who were forced to do what
they did or were too young at the time to appreciate what they
were doing, or both, will be barred from protection despite
these facts.
This is a problem of interpretation, not a problem with the
current statute, or at least it should not be. Defenses and
exceptions should be considered to be implicit in the statute,
and, in fact, up until around 2004, a number of lawyers
representing the Department of Homeland Security in Immigration
Court were agreeing with this position in litigation.
Unfortunately, the current trend has been toward a unified
refusal to recognize that the terrorism bars were not meant to
target 12-year-olds or, for that matter, adults who act under
duress.
I also want to emphasize that in talking about child
soldiers wrongly subject to exclusion under these provisions,
we are talking about the children who have been rehabilitated
and who are seeking the protection of refugee status or asylum
so that they can continue to put their lives and their psyches
back together. We are talking about people no one is seriously
arguing pose a threat to us. Anyone who actually does pose a
threat to the security of this country is barred from asylum
under a separate provision of the law.
While authority exists under the statute to waive some of
these provisions as an unreviewable matter of executive
discretion, the implementation of that waiver authority has
been extremely slow and also incomplete. Also, it does not
cover any child who is actually a combatant, who actually
fought for a rebel army. And, finally, there is no waiver
authority for some of the other bars that child soldier cases
sometimes trigger.
For example, our organization has been representing a young
man who was jailed and tortured at the age of 13 by his own
government, which then forced him into its national army. He
was 14 years old at the time. He was sent to the front where he
was made to shoot at people in the distance, some of whom may
have been civilians. He does not know if he hit anybody. He
does know that another child who refused to shoot was executed
in front of his eyes, as was another child who tried to escape.
This young man, while still a child, fled to the United States
and told our Government all about this. The Department of
Homeland Security has been opposing his application for asylum
for years on the grounds that his actions as a child and under
duress make him a persecutor of others. There is no waiver for
this bar to protection. This young man is a great person, and
he has done a remarkable job of putting a life together for
himself here. But he has no security, and everything he does he
does under a cloud of deportation hanging over his head.
We will soon be filing an application for asylum for
another former child soldier whose case is likely to end up in
indefinite limbo based on the erroneous interpretation of these
bars to asylum. I cannot tell this child how long it will be
before this problem is fixed and she can really feel save here-
6 more months, 1 more year, 2 more years? That is a long time
when you are 15 years old.
Those who use child soldiers often use atrocious means to
convince them that they can never go home. Right now our
immigration laws prevent them from finding shelter here either.
This situation urgently needs to change. If the relevant
Federal agencies will not recognize defenses and exceptions as
inherent in the current statute, Congress should act to make
clear that its intention in passing these laws was not to turn
the very harm refugees have suffered into a ground for
excluding them from the protection they need.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hughes appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Thank you.
Our last witness is Joseph Mettimano, Director of Public
Policy and Advocacy for World Vision. I might just add
parenthetically that as I have traveled, I often ask in the
countries where I travel about the NGOs. World Vision enjoys a
very good reputation for excellent work around the world.
Mr. Mettimano. Glad to hear it.
Chairman Durbin. I am glad you are here today representing
them.
Prior to joining World Vision, Mr. Mettimano served as the
Deputy Director of Public Policy and Advocacy with the U.S.
Fund for UNICEF. Before that, he held other positions in the
nonprofit sector and the broadcasting industry. Mr. Mettimano
holds a B.A. from Temple University.
Thank you for joining us. Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF JOSEPH METTIMANO, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC POLICY AND
ADVOCACY, WORLD VISION, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Mettimano. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I
want to thank you and Senator Coburn for inviting me to testify
at this very important hearing, but more importantly, I want to
thank both of you for your ongoing leadership and commitment to
protect children, both here in the United States and around the
world.
I also want to note that it has been a real pleasure
working with your staff on this bill, Senator Durbin. Shannon
Smith has just done a fantastic job stewarding this bill
through the process.
My colleagues on the panel already have provided a wealth
of information on the topic of child soldiers and illuminated
both the legal and very personal impact that this issue has
around the world. My goal today, hopefully, is to provide the
Committee with the perspective of an operational humanitarian
organization on this topic. As you noted in your comment,
around the world, World Vision is working in communities where
this is a problem, so I would like to talk a little bit about
our programs and what are some of the challenges that we
encounter in addressing this issue. In addition, I would like
to just provide a few thoughts as a child advocate here in
Washington, D.C.
First, let me just give a quick profile of the organization
that I represent. World Vision is a Christian humanitarian
organization. We were founded in 1950, and today World Vision
is the largest, privately funded, international humanitarian
organization based in the U.S. and one of the leading
nongovernmental organizations in the world. We have 23,000
staff serving the poor in nearly 100 countries, and in 2006, we
provided assistance to more than 100 million people around the
world.
As a child-focused organization, it is both imperative and
inescapable that we address several forms of child
exploitation, everything from sexual exploitation through
exploitative child labor and including the issue we are talking
about today--child soldiers. Our work with child soldiers is
really focused primarily on prevention, demobilization,
rehabilitation, and reintegration of those who are impacted by
this problem.
Needless to say, it is an exceedingly difficult problem to
address in the field. As has already been noted, many of these
children are forcibly recruited by either rebel groups or
state-run military organizations. Others may not but continue
to serve in armed conflict nonetheless. Many of these kids are
exploited as a result of their poverty. In some communities,
children have very few options. They may not be able to get
three square meals a day unless they are participating and
joining one of these military groups. So oftentimes, as a
result of their poverty, they are exploited and enticed to join
one of these military groups. It is really just an unfortunate
situation for many kinds in these communities.
I want to note that children suffer higher mortality rates,
disease rates, and injury rates in combat situations than
adults so. And the lasting effects of war and abuse may remain
with these kids for long periods of time after the shooting
stops.
Both girls and boys often are stigmatized and traumatized
by their experience, as many are forced to commit atrocities
against their own families and their own communities. Sometimes
they are left without a place to go when the bullets stop
flying.
Given the horrific nature of this abuse, there are a range
of interventions that are needed, some of which World Vision is
doing and many of our partners are engaging in. First and
foremost is the need to identify who these kids are and get
them demobilized. Getting them away from conflict situations
and providing them with protective shelter so they are
protected from the organizations that they are engaged with.
Second, obviously these kids require a substantial amount
of medical treatment and psychosocial support. A number of
children who are in our programs have bullet wounds, knife
wounds, other battle injuries. But more often than not, they
all have psychological trauma.
Third, if reintegration is possible, that is the next step
in the process, preparing these kids to return back to normal
life. That is done through peer counseling, job training, and
informal education, most of which World Vision is engaged with.
And then we start the process of family tracing and
reunifications, hopefully trying to get these children back
with their families and in their communities.
And, fifth, it is very important that we address the very
specific needs of the girls who have been affected by armed
conflict. As has already been noted, many of these girls serve
double duty, both as combatants and as sex slaves to rebel
commanders or other military leaders in the units that they are
a part of. Several of these girls end up with children as a
result of this exploitation, and many also have sexually
transmitted diseases.
For World Vision, prevention is the key. We believe that
prevention is the absolute best intervention. We would rather
see these children not exploited in the first place rather than
having to do long after-care.
One of our strongest programs is located in northern
Uganda, actually, in Gulu, a northern district in Uganda. World
Vision runs the Children of War Program, which is a counseling
center for former child soldiers and adults who were abducted
as children. It is the largest and most well established
rehabilitation center in all of Uganda. It opened in 1995, and
the center provides abducted children with temporary shelter,
AIDS education, food, medical treatment, psychosocial
counseling, vocational counseling, spiritual nurture, and helps
to facilitate the smooth reunion of the children with their
families. I am proud to say that more than 15,000 children have
gone through our center since it opened in 1995.
Based on our experience, let me give you an idea of the
kinds of situations that we deal with. I am sure the panel and
members of the Committee are likely aware of the 21-year
conflict that has been going on in northern Uganda. This
conflict has terrorized the region, destroyed the lives of an
entire generation of children, and hindered overall development
of the country since it started. According to Human Rights
Watch and the Coalition to Prevent Child Soldiers, the northern
Uganda conflict today has one of the highest rates of child
soldier usage in the world.
For the past 21 years, the children of northern Uganda have
been made pawns in a deadly game of war between the Lord's
Resistance Army--the LRA--and the Government of Uganda. Well
more than 25,000 children have been used as child soldiers in
this conflict since its inception.
Senators, indeed the face of this war in northern Uganda is
children. More than 80 percent of the LRA is made up of
abducted children at this time. In addition, there are
allegations that the Ugandan Army--or UPDF, Ugandan People's
Defense Force--has used child soldiers as well. For years,
there have been mass hostage takings by the LRA, where tens of
thousands of children have been abducted and forced to become
soldiers. ``Kill or be killed'' is the reality for every one of
these children. And in the case of girls, as we mentioned,
being sexually exploited comes along with the territory of
being abducted into the LRA.
This environment has resulted in stories like that of
``William,'' an 11-year-old boy in Uganda who was forced to
kill five people as part of his indoctrination with the LRA,
with which he served for 2 years. The first time William killed
someone, he, along with other children, were forced to bite to
death one child who had attempted to escape from the LRA. After
the victim died of blood loss and shock from the biting,
William and others were then required to swallow the dead
child's blood. It was a warning to him and others not to try to
escape, or they would face the same torture.
I also want to tell you about a friend of mine by the name
of Grace Akallo, a former child soldier who testified on behalf
of World Vision before the U.S. House of Representatives last
year. In October 1996, the LRA attacked St. Mary's College, a
girls' boarding school in Aboke Town in northern Uganda. They
abducted 139 girls, including Grace, and she was 15-years-old
at the time. She and the other girls that were captured were
then trained on how to assemble, disassemble, clean, and use
guns. They were held in slavery by both the northern Sudanese
Government and by the LRA. Grace and her classmates were
forcibly given to senior LRA commanders as so-called wives and
then repeatedly raped. Five of Grace's friends died in
captivity, many are infected with HIV/AIDS, and 11 years later,
two of her friends are still held hostage by the Lord's
Resistance Army. Fortunately, both William and Grace eventually
escaped and received support.
Right now, with the support of the United Nations and
countries from the Africa region, peace talks are underway
between the warring parties, so-called Juba peace talks. We are
very hopeful that this may lead to peace, but after 21 years of
death, destruction, and broader regional instability, the
international community needs to maintain an active presence
and support for these talks. In particular, all parties
involved have requested the presence of the U.S. Government at
the talks in Juba.
Uganda is just one chapter in this story, Senator.
Unfortunately, similar situations exist around the world.
Today an estimated 250,000 children are serving in armed
conflict in 20 countries. These child soldiers include both
boys and girls, sometimes as young as 8 years old.
The challenges for NGO's like World Vision and others are
many. First and foremost, just our limited access to getting to
these kids, limited influence in getting these children
demobilized. We are operating in a war zone. It is very
difficult to get these kids out of combat.
Second is implementing programs in a conflict setting;
ability to successfully get to resources, ability to operate
safe centers is very challenging.
Third, you can imagine the psychological and physical
trauma that these victims endure. Sometimes it is well beyond
our means to be able to successfully bring about a full healing
to many of these children.
And then there are the many other problems: preventing the
child from getting re-recruited if they leave our center;
protecting children from retaliation, keeping in mind that they
committed atrocities against their own communities and their
own families; and then reunification of children with their
communities.
More specifically, the challenges for reintegration include
just the continued conflict and instability in their respective
regions, lack of educational and vocational opportunities, and
the situation of girls who now have children as a result of the
conflict; lack of adequate funding for psychosocial programs
and community followup. Followup is also imperative. Again, all
of this is occurring in the backdrop of violent conflict.
While organizations like World Vision can continue to work
to protect and rehabilitate children, our ability to mitigate
and resolve conflict is quite limited. We can help bring
physical and emotional wounds to healing, but we cannot stop
the war or change the policies of the governments or
organizations that use children in conflict.
From our perspective, the international community,
especially world leaders such as the U.S. Government, can and
should play a more engaged role through diplomatic efforts,
program funding, assisting peace negotiations, and leveraging
resources.
Over the years, I am glad to say that the U.S. Government,
and the U.S. Congress in particular, has provided millions of
dollars in program funding, ratified treaties, and passed
relevant resolutions
For example, the U.S. Government is a state party to the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The United States is also a state party to ILO Convention 182.
In addition, the United States has enacted the Trafficking
Victims Protection Act of 2000. This along with a range of
resolutions passed by both the House and the Senate have been
helpful. However, most recently, actually last week, the U.S.
Senate under your leadership, Mr. Chairman, introduced another
piece of legislation that provides a key element of a strategy
to combat this problem. As you know, while many child soldiers
are found among armed non-state actors, the State Department
reports that 10 countries are implicated in the use of child
soldiers. Some of these governments recruit children directly
into their own armed forces, while others are directly linked
to militias that use children in warfare. The U.S. Government
provides military assistance to nine of these ten countries,
whether it is a small amount of funding for military training
or hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons or military
systems.
I am very confident that most U.S. taxpayers would agree
that U.S. tax dollars should not be used to support the
exploitation of child soldiers. Nor should U.S. weapons end up
in the hands of children abroad.
You and Senator Brownback have introduced the Child Soldier
Prevention Act of 2007 to encourage governments to disarm,
demobilize, and rehabilitate child soldiers from government
forces and government-supported paramilitaries by restricting
various forms of U.S. military assistance to these governments
and to get them to end any involvement in this practice.
Chairman Durbin. Mr. Mettimano, if I could ask you to wrap
up.
Mr. Mettimano. Yes. I am right now, sir.
Rightly, this bill is directed at national governments that
receive military assistance to help them professionalize their
forces and to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not used to
finance the exploitation of children.
We at World Vision believe this bill will provide strong
incentives for foreign governments to end any involvement in
the recruitment of child soldiers and, notably, also encourages
the U.S. to expand funding to rehabilitate child soldiers
around the world.
Mr. Chairman, I applaud you for your leadership on this
important piece of legislation and on human rights issues
around the world. We at World Vision stand ready to work with
you on our common goals.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mettimano appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Durbin. Well, thank you very much, and as I said
earlier, World Vision is a major player in this, and the
rehabilitation efforts I have heard about as I have traveled
make a big difference.
Mr. Beah, we have thousands of soldiers coming back from
war--from Iraq and Afghanistan and other places--and about one
out of three of them come back with a condition known as post-
traumatic stress disorder. The stress that they have been under
in combat, separation from their families, the things that they
have witnessed, and the things that they have done haunt them,
sometimes for years after they return.
When I listened to you describe what you had personally
been through, the separation from your family, losing your
family, the horrible violence that you witnessed, can you tell
me whether that type of psychological situation is something
that you had to deal with personally?
Mr. Beah. Yes. Well, I went through rehabilitation for 8
months after I was removed from the conflict, so I had to deal
with that. But even, you know, I think a lot of people think
that healing from this kind of war is sort of an immediate
process. I think it is a long-term process, and with time you
learn to live with the memories and you transform them into
something positive, which is what I have done. But these
things, what I saw, what I was forced to be a part of, are
things I will never forget. But I think children who live
through this, what they come to learn is that those things
become instructional tools for them to know what not to do
because they understand deeply what violence truly is and what
it does to the human spirit, what it does to communities, and
what it does to human beings in general.
Chairman Durbin. I guess you would have to say that you,
despite this terrible experience, have been fortunate since to
have a helping hand to put your life back together. Have you
been in touch with any of those who were with you, other child
soldiers in Sierra Leone? Do you know what has happened to
them?
Mr. Beah. I was in Sierra Leone last year, and I was able
to find some friends who had been at the center with me or some
that I have known through the war. There are a few who have
been able to emigrate to other countries, who live abroad, and
there are few living in Sierra Leone who are still going to
school. And there are those who, because during the height of
the war when I was able to live because of the American family
that I was able to get, some who didn't have that opportunity
were dragged back into the war again. So some of them are
completing another second phase of rehabilitation. So there are
some of those instances.
But, you know, I truly believe that if children are given
the right care and support and if they are prevented from re-
recruitment, they can actually regain themselves. It is not
just about healing the child. It is also about creating
something substantive for the child after they heal so that
they will be able to take charge of their life. I think it is
very important.
Chairman Durbin. Do you know if the people of Sierra Leone
are following this prosecution that I mentioned in my opening
remarks, where nine people have been accused of using child
soldiers and are being prosecuted in the courts of that
country?
Mr. Beah. People are--in the beginning, when the Special
Court was formed and the commission, there was a strong
interest in it, but I think from my personal experience of it
and from the people I have spoken to, when Charles Taylor was
moved to the Hague, I think that dealt a blow to a lot of
people because I think people wanted that trial to take place
in Sierra Leone or in West Africa so that--because that is what
has been missing in that subcontinent for a while. The rule of
law and justice being administered to people, however big or
powerful they are, has failed people since the 1960's. So
people wanted that to happen, and that would have helped repair
the judicial system. But when that was taken, I think a lot of
people lost interest in, you know, sort of the effectiveness of
this thing. But people are still interested and people--not as
many as we would want.
Chairman Durbin. Ms. Hughes, Senator Coburn and I both
thought that after your testimony we should have direct contact
with the Department of Homeland Security to ask them about this
wrinkle in the law, the PATRIOT Act, that you have talked about
that is causing such injustice. And as I understand your
testimony, the ``material support'' language in the PATRIOT Act
would lead those who are coerced, such as child soldiers, to be
treated the same as those who are coercing. Is that right?
Ms. Hughes. That is right--I mean, that is wrong, and that
makes no sense and that is unfair. But that is the way the law
is being interpreted. And that is true not only of the material
support provisions in the law, but also in other provisions of
the law that are also bars to refugee status, for example, the
persecutor bar as well.
Chairman Durbin. And could you tell me, did I also
understand your testimony to say that in some instances the
recruiter might be treated more favorably than the coerced
child?
Ms. Hughes. In the particular situation where the recruiter
was a governmental recruiter, then there is an interesting
wrinkle in the terrorism bars where, although they are
extremely broad, the one thing they do require is that the
activity, the terrorist activity, be unlawful in the country
where it was carried out. And that is being interpreted to
exclude governmental conduct, basically.
Chairman Durbin. Thank you.
Senator Coburn?
Senator Coburn. I am interested in when somebody presents
for asylum, what is the availability to those that have not
undergone rehabilitation, as they present for asylum, what is
available to them? I understand, especially from reading the
excerpts of your book, that there is a great impact that
happens in the field in terms of rehabilitation with World
Vision and others. But what happens if somebody is here for
asylum and has not been rehabilitated? What do they do? Does
anybody want to answer that? What is available to them? As you
outlined, your friend who is being held in chains and is now
under--I guess Homeland Security is going to appeal the
decision on your friend or the person that you testified for.
Mr. Beah. Yes.
Senator Coburn. Has he undergone rehabilitation? And what
was available to him for that?
Mr. Beah. In the United States, actually nothing is
available because what happens, when he arrived, because his
mother was able to get him out and put him on a plane with a
fake Swiss passport, and when he arrived, he said, ``I want
asylum.'' And they basically called immigration.
So immediately in the U.S., when you arrive with those
cases, instead of rehabilitative measures or taking care of you
becoming the first step, the first question becomes: Why are
you illegal, and how can we deal with that? Not, How can we
rehabilitate you and then take care of your case?
Senator Coburn. So basically we need a special track in
this country for children soldiers who are seeking asylum.
Mr. Beah. Well, not all of them come that are not
rehabilitated, but those who--
Senator Coburn. But those that do not--or let's say that
you are coming, rehabilitated or not, what we have heard in the
testimony from Ms. Hughes and Mr. Roth and Mr. Mettimano is
that we do not have a system set to handle this right now in a
compassionate, discerning way. What we do is let the harsh
words of the law apply very vigorously through somebody's
interpretation, intended or otherwise, and so consequently we
may pass this bill, but if we do not do anything about changing
the actual system on how people come through here and how they
are met and how they are dealt with in terms of recognizing
what they come from, it is going to be for naught.
So I would like to hear whatever suggestions you might
have, and you do not have to do that now, but you might put
into writing to Senator Durbin and me what you would see. In
other words, given the law, the PATRIOT Act, given also the
immigration changes that were there with the REAL ID, what
needs to be tweaked to be able to accomplish that in a
compassionate way, recognizing that there still may be
terrorists in a group of this, but to give us both the
compassion we need as a country, but also the protection that
we need as a country. I wondered if you might do that for us.
Ms. Hughes. We would be happy to. There have been
legislative measures proposed that would make explicit in the
Act the notion of mitigation and defenses and exceptions that
we think should be implicit in the Act already. And so that
would be an important step not only for child soldiers, but
also for other refugees who are facing equally compelling
pressure, because we obviously do not want a situation where
the child soldier who makes it onto the plan is provided with
protection, but the mother who paid money to a rebel group to
get his release is barred.
Senator Coburn. Right. And we also want to make sure that
somebody coming here for asylum that was a child soldier that
has not been rehabilitated, if they get asylum and we do not
have a way to help them with the rehabilitation, what have we
let loose if somebody has not been through that process, much
like Ishmael has?
You know, I read the poignant characterization of you in
this adopted family where you were. Was her name Helen? What
was the lady's name? I read this last night late, so I am
having trouble. She said, ``Why don't I become your family?''
What was her name?
Mr. Beah. Esther.
Senator Coburn. Esther. You know, the fact that everybody
needs an Esther. Everybody needs an Esther that has gone
through that, somebody that is going to reach down in and re-
establish human bonding of compassion and caring.
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the hearing. We will have a
couple of written questions that we would like to submit, and I
very much--and I am going to ask the Chairman to have a hearing
with Homeland Security and Immigration here so that we can
actually find out why the change in status. Was it totally
based on the law? And with your recommendations and that
hearing, maybe we can actually do the tweaks. We need to hear
both sides of the story, but maybe we can do the tweaks to
appropriately handle this.
Chairman Durbin. I thank you, Senator Coburn, and some of
the issues raised in the human trafficking hearing, which I
know you have seen some reports on, can also be addressed by
Homeland Security.
Senator Coburn. I would also like to ask to be named as a
cosponsor of the bill.
Chairman Durbin. I am going to ask unanimous consent for
that to occur, and I think I just received it. So you are now a
cosponsor of the bill. Thank you very much.
Mr. Roth, a moral dilemma is taking place in Uganda where
both sides are exploiting children. How do we achieve peace and
justice in those circumstances?
Mr. Roth. I think that there are many people who falsely
assume that you have to grant amnesty in order to have peace,
and certainly the murderous Lord's Resistant Army, the
leadership that has been indicted by the International Criminal
Court, is trying to advance that simplistic view. I think our
experience, though, is that peace without justice will not be
peace. The best example is to look at what happened in Sierra
Leone, where there was initially an amnesty given to the
Revolutionary United Front because it said you cannot prosecute
us if we are going to have peace. The government gave in, and
the rebel group used about 2 years to rearm and relaunch the
war with further use of child soldiers and further atrocities.
Frankly, that sort of small example can be replicated across
the continent.
If you send the signal that no matter how vicious you are,
no matter how many child soldiers you enlist and deploy into
combat, when push comes to shove and it is time for a peace
accord, you just say, ``Sorry, you know, no peace unless you
give me an amnesty,'' you are going to end up encouraging that
kind of misuse of children again and again and again.
So the only way to have lasting peace in Uganda or lasting
peace across the continent is to be serious about this crime
that now exists at the international level that we hope will
exist now at the national level as well, and to prosecute
particularly the leadership who are responsible. This does not
mean prosecute every single person who has been involved, but
the leadership which has been indicted by the ICC should have
its day in court and spend a good long time in prison.
Chairman Durbin. I will not go into it, but it raises the
terrible ethical challenge in Sudan, where I believe the
Khartoum government has been reluctant to allow U.N.
peacekeepers to come into the Darfur region for fear that they
will gather evidence against that same government in terms of
their criminal misconduct.
Mr. Roth. I have heard that argument, but let me, if I
could, put it another way. Khartoum got away with murder and
mayhem and atrocities for 21 years in southern Sudan, and they
said, you know, ``OK, we will agree to peace in southern Sudan.
Just don't prosecute us for what we did there.'' And the
international community bought that deal, and that paved the
groundwork for the atrocities that are now taking place in
Darfur. Because they got away with it once, they will get away
with it again.
The only way to prevent the proliferation of these kind of
atrocities is to draw the line and to say when you have
committed these crimes, we now have the institution to
prosecute you, and you will be prosecuted.
Chairman Durbin. I certainly hope that everyone feels as I
do, which was one of the elements behind the Genocide
Accountability Act, that we do not want the United States to be
a safe haven for those who are guilty of war crimes anywhere in
the world. They have to believe that there is not a comfortable
place for them to live in this country, that they can be
prosecuted for their misconduct.
Mr. Mettimano, when I listened to Mr. Beah's testimony, he
talked about being anesthetized with drugs during much of his
experience as a child soldier. And I think about what World
Vision is trying to do to try to bring back these young people
from the horrible, atrocious lives they have lived and the
violence that they have witnessed and perpetrated.
How do you deal with that in addition to drug addiction
which may have been created in this same experience?
Mr. Mettimano. As I noted in my comments, it presents a
very difficult challenge and, frankly, many children never
fully recover from their experiences as a child soldier, and it
is just compounded if drugs are involved because it hinders
sort of the cognitive process with kids being able to work
through what they experienced, or it can at least protract the
process significantly.
Part of our program, both in northern Uganda and other
places where we have encountered this, including Sierra Leone,
has just included ongoing, intensive drug rehabilitation like
you may find in other places. But the process typically is
going to last a lot longer because you are dealing not only
with drug treatment, but physical wounds that are being healed,
deep emotional wounds, depending on the age of the victim, and
all that is being done in isolation. Typically there is no
family support network around these children, so it is a very
difficult and complex process to work through.
Chairman Durbin. What is your success rate on
rehabilitation of these young people?
Mr. Mettimano. In general, about 98 percent, and in Uganda
it has been about 92 percent of the 15,000 that have gone
through our center.
Chairman Durbin. And Mr. Beah tells a story of losing his
family during the course of this.
Mr. Mettimano. Right.
Chairman Durbin. I would imagine that story is repeated
many times by those who are being helped by your organization.
So as they leave, still children, where do they go? What is the
next step?
Mr. Mettimano. It depends on the age of the victim. If they
are still under age 18, what we try to do is if they can go
back to their nuclear family or their community, we try to get
them in foster placement basically with another family in their
home community or in an area that is near their home so they
are still within familiar boundaries.
If the person is of adult age, we try to give them all the
skills that they need to mainstream their life: give them job
training skills, we give them informal education, and place
them in a place where they will be able to restart their life
and they will not be under constant threat of retaliation
because of their crimes.
Chairman Durbin. Mr. Beah, do you know what happened to
your captors, those who took you away and made a soldier of you
at that early age?
Mr. Beah. No. I am not sure what happened to them. During
the course of the war, there were a few who were killed, but
after that, I was removed from it. I do not know what happened
to those.
Chairman Durbin. Well, I would like to say that I am going
to wrap up this hearing, but as I said at the outset, we
address some very serious and poignant issues in this
Subcommittee, but I do not want the Committee hearing to end
with people saying, ``Isn't it a darn shame?'' This is about
doing something, passing legislation, changing policy, trying
to address these issues. I will repeat what I said earlier: It
is not about lamentation; it is about legislation.
There are three specific things that have come out in this
hearing that I want to work on. The first is on asylum seekers,
and I do believe that that provision of the PATRIOT Act
relative to material support of terrorism needs to be
revisited. If we cannot see the distinction between those who
are coercing children into this situation and those who are
coerced, the children, then the law is clearly not what we want
it to be and needs to be addressed. That is No. 1.
Number two is to give prosecution authority within the
United States for those who are guilty of crimes involving
child soldiers overseas, again, so that no one can view the
United States as a safe haven if they have been engaged in this
conduct either officially in a governmental capacity or in any
other capacity.
And, finally, the bill, which Senator Sam Brownback and I
have introduced, this is going to be more challenging because I
want to tell you, when you look at the list of the nine or ten
countries involved, there are some there that are considered
friends of the United States and cooperative with the United
States. And we have to be very blunt with them that cooperation
will mean that they also forswear the use of child soldiers in
their own countries. And if they fail to do so, they will pay a
price, that the military assistance will be relegated to
efforts to remedy this problem; and if they do not remedy it,
then military assistance may be reduced or cutoff.
That is not an easy task in this Congress because there
will be many people who argue that so many other good things
are happening, we should not push this issue. But those are the
three things: asylum, prosecution authority, and military
assistance, foreign military assistance to countries involved
in using child soldiers.
I do want to do a little bit of housekeeping here before I
bring this to an end. I want to note that--if I can find it
among my papers here. I want to place in the record written
statements from the Center for Defense Information, Amnesty
International, and David Scheffer, Northwestern Law School
professor and former U.S. Ambassador for War Crimes Issues.
Without objection, and since there is no one here, there will
be no objection--Senator Whitehouse?
Senator Whitehouse. No objection.
[Laughter.]
Chairman Durbin. Good. We are glad that you are here. We
are just about to wrap up the hearing, but I want to give you a
chance, Senator, if you would like to make a statement or ask a
question.
Senator Whitehouse. No. I am happy to meet the panel at the
end.
Chairman Durbin. Well, thank you for joining us here. Thank
you very much.
The hearing record will remain open for a week for
additional materials from interested individuals and
organizations. Written questions for the witnesses will also be
submitted by the close of business 1 week from today. We will
ask the witnesses to respond promptly, if they can.
As we close the hearing, I would urge everyone listening to
contemplate the question and challenge that Ishmael Beah posed
to all of us today. As a father and grandfather, I listened to
your words very carefully because you said: would we want our
children and grandchildren to endure the pain and suffering
that Mr. Beah and other child soldiers face?
As Mr. Beah reminded us, the lives of child soldiers are
just as important as those of our own kids and grandkids. We
have a moral obligation to take action to help these young
people and to stop the abhorrent practice of recruiting and
using child soldiers.
Mr. Beah, thank you for being here today. Thank you for
this long journey that you have made that brought you to this
hearing room and I'm sure that you will continue to be a strong
advocate for changing this terrible situation. It is a great
honor to have you in the hearing room as well as the other
witnesses.
Mr. Roth, thank you for the continued work that you have
done.
Ms. Hughes, fighting on the front lines, in the courtrooms
and at the hearings for a lot of people, I thank you for that.
Mr. Mettimano, again, my best to World Vision and the many
other NGOs that do such fine work.
This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:22 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Questions and answers and submissions for the record
follow.]
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