War is no one's game. Even less for the hundreds of thousands of'children recruited by militias or armed groups and used throughout the world as soldiers, cooks, porters, spies, antipersonnel mine layers, sex slaves, etc.
Justice and Peace Belgium and WING platform (War Is Not a Game) celebrate today the 20th anniversary of a Protocol which provides for the prohibition in principle of recruiting persons under the age of 18 and using them to participate in hostilities: the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflicts ". This Protocol is ratified by 170 States and yet the use of children in armed conflicts is the reality in many countries.
In March 2019, Justice and Peace and other Belgian Red Cross, GRIP, Wapa organizations with the support of the DGDE created the national WING platform which aims to prevent and put an end to the recruitment of children, to support disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programs, to raise public awareness of the problem of child soldiers and to conduct research on this problem.
WING calls for the universalization of the Protocol and its effective respect in order to allow children to have a childhood.
Discover WING's recommendations to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers, like the WING page and discover our site www.wingplatform.be
