106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. CON. RES. 348
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Whereas in the year 2000 approximately 300,000 individuals
under the age of 18 are participating in armed conflict
in more than 30 countries worldwide;
Whereas many of these children are forcibly conscripted
through kidnaping or coercion, while others join military
units due to economic necessity, to avenge the loss of a
family member, or for their own personal safety;
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Whereas many military commanders frequently force child
soldiers to commit gruesome acts of ritual killings or tor-
ture against their enemies, including against other chil-
dren;
Whereas many military commanders separate children from
their families in order to foster dependence on military
units and leaders, leaving children vulnerable to manipu-
lation, deep traumatization, and in need of psychological
counseling and rehabilitation;
Whereas child soldiers are exposed to hazardous conditions
and risk physical injuries, sexually transmitted diseases,
malnutrition, deformed backs and shoulders from car-
rying overweight loads, and respiratory and skin infec-
tions;
Whereas many young female soldiers face the additional psy-
chological and physical horrors of rape and sexual abuse,
being enslaved for sexual purposes by militia com-
manders, and forced to endure severe social stigma
should they return home;
Whereas children in northern Uganda continue to be kid-
naped by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) which is
supported and funded by the Government of Sudan and
which has committed and continues to commit gross
human rights violations in Uganda;
Whereas children in Sri Lanka have been forcibly recruited
by the opposition Tamil Tigers movement and forced to
kill or be killed in the armed conflict in that country;
Whereas an estimated 7,000 child soldiers have been involved
in the conflict in Sierra Leone, some as young as age 10,
with many being forced to commit extrajudicial execu-
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tions, torture, rape, and amputations for the rebel Revo-
lutionary United Front;
Whereas on January 21, 2000, in Geneva, a United Nations
Working Group, including representatives from more
than 80 governments including the United States,
reached consensus on an optional protocol on the use of
child soldiers;
Whereas this optional protocol will raise the international
minimum age for conscription to age 18 and will require
governments to take all feasible measures to ensure that
members of their armed forces under the age of 18 do
not participate directly in combat, prohibit the recruit-
ment and use in armed conflict of persons under the age
of 18 by nongovernmental armed forces, encourage gov-
ernments to raise the minimum legal age for voluntary
recruits above the current standard of 15 and, commits
governments to support the demobilization and rehabilita-
tion of child soldiers, and when possible, to allocate re-
sources to this purpose;
Whereas on October 29, 1998, United Nations Secretary
General Kofi Annan set minimum age requirements for
United Nations peacekeeping personnel that are made
available by member nations of the United Nations;
Whereas the participating States of the Organization for Se-
curity and Cooperation in Europe, in the 1999 Charter
for European Security signed in Istanbul, Turkey, com-
mitted themselves to ‘‘develop and implement measures
to promote the rights and interests of children in armed
conflict and postconflict situations, including refugees
and internally displaced children’’ and to ‘‘look at ways
of preventing forced or compulsory recruitment for use in
armed conflict of persons under 18 years of age’’;
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Whereas United Nations Under-Secretary General for Peace-
keeping, Bernard Miyet, announced in the Fourth Com-
mittee of the General Assembly that contributing govern-
ments of member nations were asked not to send civilian
police and military observers under the age of 25, and
that troops in national contingents should preferably be
at least 21 years of age but in no case should they be
younger than 18 years of age;
Whereas on August 25, 1999, the United Nations Security
Council unanimously passed Resolution 1261 (1999) con-
demning the use of children in armed conflicts;
Whereas in addressing the Security Council, the Special Rep-
resentative of the Secretary General for Children and
Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, urged the adoption of a
global three-pronged approach to combat the use of chil-
dren in armed conflict, first to raise the age limit for re-
cruitment and participation in armed conflict from the
present age of 15 to the age of 18, second, to increase
international pressure on armed groups which currently
abuse children, and third to address the political, social,
and economic factors which create an environment where
children are induced by appeal of ideology or by socio-
economic collapse to become child soldiers;
Whereas the United States delegation to the United Nations
working group relating to child soldiers, which included
representatives from the Department of Defense, sup-
ported the Geneva agreement on the optional protocol;
Whereas on May 25, 2000, the United Nations General As-
sembly unanimously adopted the optional protocol on the
use of child soldiers;
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Whereas the optional protocol was opened for signature on
June 5, 2000; and
Whereas President Clinton has publicly announced his sup-
port of the optional protocol and a speedy process of re-
view and signature: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That—
(1) the Congress joins the international commu-
nity in—
(A) condemning the use of children as sol-
diers by governmental and nongovernmental
armed forces worldwide;
(B) welcoming the optional protocol as a
critical first step in ending the use of children
as soldiers; and
(C) applauding the decision by the United
States Government to support the protocol;
(2) it is the sense of the Congress that—
(A) President Clinton should be com-
mended for signing the optional protocol and
should consult closely with the Senate with the
objective of building support for this protocol;
(B) the President and the Congress should
work together to enact a law that establishes a
fund for the rehabilitation and reintegration
into society of child soldiers; and
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(C) the Departments of State and Defense
should undertake all possible efforts to per-
suade and encourage other governments to rat-
ify and endorse the new optional protocol on the
use of child soldiers.
Passed the House of Representatives July 11, 2000.
Attest:
Clerk.