NGO: Stop using children as combatants in Bawku

Accra, March 9, GNA - Challenging Heights (CH), a child rights non-governmental organisation (NGO), on Monday condemned the recruitment of children as combatants in the Bawku conflicts and called on the warring factions to stop the practice. Mr. James Kofi Annan, Executive Director of CH, in a statement to the Ghana News Agency, said: "We condemn . the organized recruitment and use of children for the purposes of killing and causing destruction to properties in those conflict areas."

He noted that the recruitment of children as combatants in the conflict in Bawku posed a threat to national security and also violated the rights of children as contained in the Optional Protocol of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibited the use of children in conflict situations. Mr Annan, who recently won an award for his involvement in saving and rehabilitating child slaves in Ghana, said the harmful and widespread physical and psychological impact of armed conflict on children, was disturbing.

"The example of the long-term negative consequences such conflicts have had on durable peace, security and development in areas such as northern Uganda, Dafuur, DR Congo and Sierra Leone, where children are used as child soldiers to kill their own parents and others in conflict situations should be a wake-up call for us as a nation," he said.

He said there were currently over 250,000 of such child soldiers in the world, out of which over 100,000 could be found in Africa alone. "Ghana must not do anything to add to this number," he said. Mr Annan said the current situation in Bawku had the potential of deteriorating if the parties to the conflict continued to indoctrinate children toward violence, adding that, the continuous feuding was depriving children of the opportunity to grow up in an atmosphere of peace and security.

"We call on all stakeholders in the conflict to consider the interest of the women and children in those areas to give peace a chance, because when there is violence, it is women and children who suffer most," he said.

He suggested that, as a first step to protecting children, the Ghana Education Service should institute immediate measures to ensure that schools in the conflict areas were given police guard and protection during school sessions to avoid any potential organized child abductions.

Mr Annan said adults caught forcing children to cause harm should be dealt with swiftly according to law to deter others.