Event Title
Conscription and Enlistment of Child Soldiers: The Need for Redefinition
Submission Type
Paper
Abstract
Recruiting child-soldiers is a war crime of particular gravity. The proposed paper challenges the current definition of the war crime of conscripting and enlisting of child-soldiers. It argues that although the Rome Statute of the ICC developed a victim-centered approach and sensitivity to intersectionality, its Statute fails child-soldiers on at least two important grounds. First, by limiting the prohibition to children under 15 rather than under 18 as per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its 2001 Optional Protocol. Second, in outlining the elements of crimes in such manner the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) must establish that the tasks performed by child-soldiers are linked to combat. Subsequently, children older than 15 and younger than 18 years are not recognized as conscripted and enlisted child soldiers. Furthermore, neither domestic housework nor sexual slavery, violence, and sex crimes are part of the element of the crime of conscription and enlistment of child soldiers. Thus, if the OTP does not include in the indictment a separate charge of war crime (as in the ICC Lubanga case), children victims of sex crimes in a military organization are not recognized as such and their perpetrators remain unpunished. If these children did not participate in combat or combat-related activities because they were forced to serve sex slaves or domestic workers, they are not considered child soldiers and are, by definition, excluded in the reparations process. I analyze the impact of the definition of the crime based on its interpretations and application in ICC case law, policy papers of the UN, ICC, the OTP, Expert Groups liaising the ICC, the Trust Fund for Victims, Victims’ Representative, as well as DDR Reports.
Conscription and Enlistment of Child Soldiers: The Need for Redefinition
Recruiting child-soldiers is a war crime of particular gravity. The proposed paper challenges the current definition of the war crime of conscripting and enlisting of child-soldiers. It argues that although the Rome Statute of the ICC developed a victim-centered approach and sensitivity to intersectionality, its Statute fails child-soldiers on at least two important grounds. First, by limiting the prohibition to children under 15 rather than under 18 as per the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its 2001 Optional Protocol. Second, in outlining the elements of crimes in such manner the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) must establish that the tasks performed by child-soldiers are linked to combat. Subsequently, children older than 15 and younger than 18 years are not recognized as conscripted and enlisted child soldiers. Furthermore, neither domestic housework nor sexual slavery, violence, and sex crimes are part of the element of the crime of conscription and enlistment of child soldiers. Thus, if the OTP does not include in the indictment a separate charge of war crime (as in the ICC Lubanga case), children victims of sex crimes in a military organization are not recognized as such and their perpetrators remain unpunished. If these children did not participate in combat or combat-related activities because they were forced to serve sex slaves or domestic workers, they are not considered child soldiers and are, by definition, excluded in the reparations process. I analyze the impact of the definition of the crime based on its interpretations and application in ICC case law, policy papers of the UN, ICC, the OTP, Expert Groups liaising the ICC, the Trust Fund for Victims, Victims’ Representative, as well as DDR Reports.
