************************************************************************************* - IRAQ: Coalition Forces Must Prioritise Humanitarian Access to Iraqi People Now [news] - 59th SESSION OF THE UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS: Statements, Reports and News Coverage [CRIN website] - COTE D'IVOIRE: UNICEF Convoy Brings Relief to Forgotten Children in Côte d'Ivoire's Stricken Northeast District [news] - RWANDA: Lasting Wounds: Consequences of Genocide and War [report] - SRI LANKA: Government and LTTE Agree on Action Plan to Address the Needs of Children Affected by War in the Northeast [news] - CHILD SOLDIERS: Peace to the City Network [campaign] ************************************************************************************** Your submissions are welcome if you are working in the area of children and conflict. To contribute, email us at info@crin.org. Please note that we are unable to respond to emails addressed to crinmail_armed_conflict@domeus.co.uk Adobe Acrobat is required for viewing some of the documents, and if required can be downloaded from www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html ************************************************************************************** - IRAQ: Coalition Forces Must Prioritise Humanitarian Access to Iraqi People Now [news] More people are now dying in Iraq from lack of clean water, medical treatment, and food than are dying from the fighting, said Save the Children today. The charity has visited Umm Qasr in southern Iraq and Kirkuk in northern Iraq and found evidence of a humanitarian crisis. Most areas of Iraq are still not accessible to humanitarian organisations and the scale of need and suffering of the people in these areas is unknown. Reports of limited aid reaching areas occupied by coalition forces ignore the plight of millions still living in disputed areas. Food, water, medicines and medical staff are all in short supply across the country. There has been an outbreak of diarrhoea in Basra and there are fears that dysentery and dehydration-related deaths might follow. Under the Geneva Convention, it is the responsibility of the coalition forces now in control of most of Iraq to protect the civilian population, including ensuring that their basic humanitarian needs are met. They are failing to achieve this for most of the people in areas of the country now under their control, says the charity. Ken Caldwell, Director of International Operations for Save the Children, said: "The need is so great in Iraq after three wars and 12 years of sanctions that only a massive humanitarian effort will avert a full-scale crisis." He called on the coalition to take three urgent steps: ? To restore law and order in areas under their control, reassembling existing local police forces and guaranteeing their pay and rations for the first month. ? To guarantee specific security protection from looting and theft for all hospitals, water and power facilities, and to reassemble existing medical and engineering teams in those facilities, guaranteeing their pay and rations for the first month. ? To create security conditions in which humanitarian agencies can bring in essential supplies and expertise to support local people in these facilities, without direct military supervision or escort. Before the war began, the United Nations ran its biggest food distribution scheme on the globe in Iraq - feeding 23 million people with the help of 45,000 local food agents. This system must be resurrected as a matter of urgency. For more information, contact: Save the Children Press Office, Tel: 00 44 20 7716 2280; Email: press@scfuk.org.uk Save the Children, 17, Grove Lane, London, SE5 8RD, United Kingdom Tel: 00 44 20 7703 5400; Fax: 00 44 20 7703 2278; Email: enquiries@scfuk.org.uk Website: www.savethechildren.org.uk ------------------------------------------ - 59th SESSION OF THE UN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS: Statements, Reports and News Coverage [CRIN website] The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (CHR), composed of 53 States, meets each year in regular session in March and April for six weeks in Geneva. Over 3,000 delegates from member and observer States and from non-governmental organisations participate. There are numerous occasions when the rights of the child are addressed at the meeting. They are dealt with as a specific item of discussion and an "omnibus resolution" on the rights of the child is adopted every year. Full coverage of the session, including panel and briefing reports, NGO statements, links to statements and reports by Rapporteurs and Special Representatives, and press releases are available on the CRIN website. Issues relating to children and armed conflict include: ? VIOLIENCE: Panel on the UN Study on Violence against Children, 2 April 2003 in Word: http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/NGOCRC/NGOCHR-Violence-Panel-April2003.doc pdf: http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/publications/NGOCRC/NGOCHR-Violence-Panel-April2003.pdf ? TORTURE: Statement by the World Organisation Against Torture (Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture): http://www.omct.org/displaydocument.asp?DocType=Interventions&Language=EN&Index=3084 ? ARMED CONFLICT: Statement by the International Committee of the Red Cross http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/5LMLEM?OpenDocument For further information about the session, go to: http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/unchr.htm ----------------------------------------------- - COTE D'IVOIRE: UNICEF Convoy Brings Relief to Forgotten Children in Côte d'Ivoire's Stricken Northeast District [news] [ABIJIAN, April 10, 2003] - After seven months of isolation due to fighting, a UNICEF convoy delivered a consignment of medical supplies and relief food for children in the severely-stricken north-eastern district of Bouna, 600 km north-east of Abidjan. The supplies consisted of basic health kits, water purification tablets, mosquito nets, soap, disinfectants and plastic buckets, as well as four tons of rice, soya beans and cooking oil. The food is destined for a school children's cantine run by Roman Catholic missionaries and were sourced from World Food Programme stocks in government-controlled Bondoukou, 160 km south of Bouna. UNICEF also provided a refridgerator and three gas cylinders to revive the "cold chain" system and restart vaccination for children at Bouna Hospital. Also, two water pumps and spare parts to rehabilitate the town's broken down water supply system were delivered, as well as education and recreation kits for 1,300 school children receiving recreational care at the Catholic mission compound and at two other locations. The normal schools closed when most of the teachers fled in the heat of the fighting. [source: UNICEF. For the full story, go to: http://www.unicef.org/newsline/2003/03nn23ivorycoast.htm] --------------------------------------------------- - RWANDA: Lasting Wounds: Consequences of Genocide and War [report] The Rwandan violence of 1994 left hundreds of thousands of children dead or maimed - physically and psychologically; many of them are orphaned, and now try to cope alone. Families have opened their doors to these needy children, but have not always respected the rights of foster children. Some orphaned children are exploited as domestic servants, in exchange for food and shelter; others find themselves living on the streets where they are harassed and arrested by law enforcement officials. "The Rwandan government has repeatedly promised to remedy the human rights problems that many children still suffer, but words are not enough," said Sara Rakita, author of the report. "These children have already suffered terribly, and they need protection from further abuse." This report is available at: www.hrw.org/reports/2003/rwanda0403 For more information, contact: Human Rights Watch 2-12 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9HF Tel: 00 44 (0)20 7713 1995; Fax: 00 44 (0)20 7713 1800; Email: hrwuk@hrw.org Website: www.hrw.org Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=3371 ---------------------------------------------------- - SRI LANKA: Government and LTTE Agree on Action Plan to Address the Needs of Children Affected by War in the Northeast [news] [COLOMBO, 11 April 2003] - The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Government of Sri Lanka, local and international organisations met in Kilinochchi on the 10th and 11th April 2003, to agree on an Action Plan to address the needs and care of children affected by war in the North East. The workshop was jointly inaugurated by Mr. Sutha Thangan, Deputy Head of the LTTE Political Wing and Dr. John Gooneratne, the Deputy Director General of the Secretariat for co-ordinating the Peace Process (SCOPP) and was facilitated by UNICEF. The workshop participants developed the operational aspects of the Action Plan to ensure and restore normalcy to children affected by war, including those children engaged in hazardous labour, street children, underage recruits and children seeking recruitment. The Action Plan is based on the Guiding Principles of the best interest of the child, of children being with their families and of adopting an integrated approach to programming for the welfare of children. It further spells out the role of civil society in enhancing programme effectiveness and sustainability. The need to recognise cultural diversity and to ensure that all programmes are culturally appropriate was acknowledged. The assurance that all agencies involved in the Action Plan will maintain their neutrality in political, religious or ideological issues was reinforced. [source: UNICEF. For the full story, go to: http://www.unicef.org/newsline/2003/03nn25tamiltigers.htm] --------------------------------------------------- - CHILD SOLDIERS: Peace to the City Network [campaign] Part of the WCC International Affairs Team's Peace and Disarmament Programme, 'Peace to the City' is an ecumenical peace movement supporting both the WCC Decade to Overcome Violence and the UN Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. The Peace to the City Network is a global grassroots network of churches, peace and justice organisations, faith communities and civil society movements in cities around the world, engaged in local initiatives to overcome urban, political, ethnic and religious violence. The network focuses on a seven point peace plan: the promotion of non-violence, conflict prevention, reconciliation, gun control and the abolition of nuclear weapons, land mines and the use of child soldiers. The Eighth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in 1998 condemned any use of children in warfare, calling member churches to work to prevent the recruitment and deployment of children as soldiers, and to assist the rehabilitation and re-integration of former child combatants. Peace to the City Network members are committed to challenging and transforming the global culture of violence into the direction of a culture of peace. As part of this, WCC is urging its church members to call on their governments to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to ensure 18 is the minimum age of recruitment into the military, to lobby their governments to implement effective measures to control small arms, to support former child soldiers and their re-integration into communities and to stigmatise the use of children in armed conflict. For more information, contact: Ruth LEE World Council of Churches Asia Desk, 150 Route de Ferney, PO Box 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Tel: 00 41 227 916 220; Fax: 00 41 227 916 201; Email: rel@wcc-coe.org Website: http://wcc-coe.org/wcc/what/international/children.html ************************************************************************************** The CRINMAIL is an electronic mailing list of the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). CRIN does not accredit, validate or substantiate any information posted by members to the CRINMAIL. The validity and accuracy of any information is the responsibility of the originator. To subscribe to this list, send an email to CRIN_armed_conflict-subscribe@domeus.co.uk To unsubscribe to this list, send an email to: CRIN_armed_conflict-unsubscribe@domeus.co.uk The archives of CRIN?s email lists are available online at http://www.crin.org/email/index.asp **************************************************************************************
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