UNICEF to continue efforts to stop child recruitment

by Chamikara Weerasinghe

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) yesterday vowed to continue their efforts in the North and East until there will be no recruitment of children as child soldiers. UNICEF representative Joanna Van Gerpen said in an exclusive interview with the Daily News yesterday that the United Nations were very concerned about Sri Lanka's situation in the North and East where children are being recruited as soldiers by the LTTE.

She said the UNICEF had worked with the Government and the LTTE for several years to deter LTTE from recruiting children as child soldiers . Gerpen said they were far from reaching the expected results in terms bringing down the count of recruitment .

The progress had been very slow considering the UNICEF's serious efforts that had gone into halt the situation so far, she said.

As pointed out by UNICEF representatives, the current travel ban on LTTE had been imposed with much thought being given to their child recruitment activities.

Gerpen said the UNICEF was getting reports from international human rights monitors about LTTE child recruitment.

"However so, I have noticed a significant improvement in the last month with only ten child recruitment by the LTTE she said.

"This is a significant improvement, but until this number comes to zero, we will continue to safeguard children's rights in the North and East," she said. "We plan to work actively with the LTTE to address this issue until they deter from recruiting children" she said.

As pointed out by the Human Rights Watch, the LTTE has thousands of children under 18 years serving it as child soldiers.

The number of unconfirmed recruitment of child soldiers by the LTTE is said to be far greater than the number of those confirmed child recruitment by them, they said.

They also said those child soldiers released by the LTTE and their families were always under threat by it to re-join its forces, says Human Rights Watch.