THE PROTECTION OF MINORS DURING ARMED CONFLICTS IN CAMEROON

Abstract

Protecting children in conflicts is a significant difficulty for international children’s legislation and its application in the modern world, when about 250 million children live in violent conflict situations. The provisions of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, which are two distinct but related legal systems, that protect children during armed conflict are examined in this chapter.

It analyzes the general legal safeguards afforded to kids during armed conflict, focusing on their access to necessities for their bodily and mental health (including medical attention, food, and clothes) and their development, particularly schooling.

It also looks at how international law prevents children from taking part in armed conflicts. It explores the ban on kidnapping and using them as weapons in battle, and it reviews how to handle children who have been imprisoned or placed in detention. The chapter ends with a brief summary of how, over the past few decades, the protection of children in armed conflict has grown to be a significant worldwide and national issue.

CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background To The Study

Following the First World War, the League of Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of the Child in 1924. It was written by Radda Barnen of Sweden and British organization Save the Children. This so-called Geneva Declaration provided children of all races and nationalities with special protection and care.

The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, which broadened the prior declaration and addressed welfare, education, and the right to raising in a spirit of global brotherhood, was rewritten after the Second World War and accepted by the United Nations in 1959.

In 1974 the UN General Assembly adopted a Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergencies and Armed Conflict. This declaration condemns attacks and bombing on ci- vilian populations and prohibits persecution, imprisonment, torture and all forms of degrading violence against women and children.

The need for particular care to the child is also recognized by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (art. 23 and 24) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 10).

Nonetheless, a common viewpoint is that a Convention is required since the current Declarations are ineffective because they lack teeth. Mr. Nils Thedin, President of the Swedish Committee of the United Nations Children’s Fund, expressed the opinion that the existing Declarations are either forgotten or neglected, that an International Convention on the Rights of the Child—including protection in external and internal armed conflicts—is of the utmost importance, and that NGOs must sway public opinion and exert pressure on governments and international organizations. He said: “In the current environment with the possibility of indiscriminate annihilation in every armed conflict…

Mr. Thedin, in speaking of an international convention on the rights of the child, was supporting a proposal originally put forward by Poland to the UN Commission on Human Rights in 1978 in the hope that it would be adopted by the General Assembly during the Year of the Child. It was felt, however, that the terminology was not suited to a contractual instrument and that certain Points needed to be more adequately covered and the Commission on Human Rights opted to set up a working group.

The first meeting was held Work is also presently under way for a European Convention on the Rights of the Child. The idea of a Convention for the protection of the child is not a new one. In fact, in 1939 the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Union for Child Welfare had drafted a Convention for the Protection of Children in Armed Conflict but work could not be continued due to the outbreak of war.

In Mr. Thedin’s statement, specific attention is given to the protection of the child in external and internal armed conflicts and it is important to be aware that there already exist legal instruments in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and the two Additional Protocols of 1977 that offer precisely that. Perhaps before we examine the present legal provisions in inter-national humanitarian law which provide protection for children in particular, we should turn our attention for a moment to the beginnings of international humanitarian law and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).n 1979.

1.2 Statement Of Problem

There have been laws regulating the protection of minors during armed conflict, international organizations has also put in place institutions to make sure that minors are protected during armed conflicts. This include, the international reviews of the red cross May- June 1984 which is entitled “the protection of children in international humanitarian law”, the Geneva conventions of 1949 and their additional protocols of 1977 so as to make sure that minors are protected during armed conflicts. But this framework was seen as plaque as minors still experience inadequate protection during armed conflicts. This is glaring as seen in the case of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia 2022 which the children’s hospital was set ablaze killing minors and others went wounded.

Another problem is the ineffectiveness of the laws put in place for the protection of minions during armed conflicts and no deterrence sanctions given to perpetrators of such violations. The international institutions protecting minors during armed conflicts have been termed a bulldog that back but cannot bite. This problem necessitated the study.

1.3 Research Questions

1.3.1 Main Research Question

Protection of minors during armed conflicts

1.3.2 Specific Research Questions

1. Who is a minor and what can be termed as armed conflicts?
2. What is the various mechanism for protecting minors during armed conflicts?
3. What are the challenges faced in protecting minors during armed conflicts?
4. Are there policy recommendations that can be made which can better help protect minors during armed conflicts?

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LAW PROJECT TOPICS WITH MATERIALS

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