ACCOUNTABILITY FOR THE USE OF CHILD SOLDIERS IN AFRICA

Abstract

The use of child soldiers is a phenomenon rampant in the developing world especially in sub-Saharan Africa. The international response to curb and eliminate this unwholesome abuse of children’s rights is examined through the two 1977 Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. The 1999 International Labour Organization Convention 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour and the operation of the 2002 Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) are employed in the analysis of the use of child soldiers in Africa. The African response to the prevalence of child soldiers within Africa is analysed through the 1999 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. It is established that political leaders and war lords in Africa employed children in armed conflicts as soldiers with impunity. The 2012 conviction and imprisonment for the use of child soldiers of former Liberian president, Charles Taylor, by the Special Court for Sierra Leone and of Thomas Dyilo of the DRC by the ICC signalled a shift from impunity to accountability for the use of child soldiers in Africa.