By Mirela Xanthaki
“An AK-47 is not made for a kid. It is not made for a human being, let alone a kid,” said Kon Kelei, a former child soldier from Sudan. Kelei was taken to a camp when he was four or five years old — he is not precisely sure — and trained to fight in battle.
“What we need is to focus and advocate for rehabilitation. Rehabilitation made me who I am today and what I am saying today,” he stressed.
Kelei and other former child soldiers, along with youth leaders who have firsthand experience in conflict zones, this month launched a new Global Network of Young People Formerly Affected by War (NYPAW) at U.N. headquarters in New York.
The group is led by UNICEF advocate Ismael Beah, who wrote the international bestseller “A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Child Soldier”, where he describes his experience as a child soldier in Sierra Leone. Beah served in the Sierra Leonean army for almost two years — a reminder that it is not only rebel groups which recruit children.
The objective of the network is to demand accountability and to promote rehabilitation and empowerment of young people who are affected by armed conflict.
“The reason why we believe that change is possible is not because we are idealists but because we believe we have made it, so other people can make it as well,” Kelei said.
With an estimated 250,000 children around the world recruited to serve in armed conflicts as soldiers, messengers, spies, porters, cooks, for sexual services or even as suicide bombers, this is a pressing social issue that needs to be better addressed by the international community, advocates say.
“From the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Gaza Strip and from Afghanistan to Somalia, too many children are suffering from the consequences of conflict,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, special representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict.
“War violates every right of the child. Everybody has a role to play to stop these violations. We cannot let war continue to destroy childhood,” she said, adding that, “The power of resilience of these children should give us the strength to continue to mobilise the international community to do more to stop this terrible phenomenon.”
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