Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 112 Part 3.djvu/504

 112 STAT. 2334 PUBLIC LAW 105-262—OCT. 17, 1998 in the preceding sentence is in addition to any other amount that is made available under title VI of this Act to complete the demonstration of the alternatives and to carry out the pilot program: Provided, That none of these funds shall be taken from any ongoing operational chemical munitions destruction programs. SEC. 8128. (a) FINDINGS.— The Congress finds that— (1) child experts estimate that as many as 250,000 children under the age of 18 are currently serving in armed forces or armed groups in more than 30 countries around the world; (2) contemporary armed conflict has caused the deaths of 2,000,000 minors in the last decade alone, and has left an estimated 6,000,000 children seriously injured or permanently disabled; (3) children are uniquely vulnerable to military recruitment because of their emotional and physical immaturity, are easily manipulated, and can be drawn into violence that they are too young to resist or understand; (4) children are most likely to become child soldiers if they are poor, separated from their families, displaced from their homes, living in a combat zone, or have limited access to education; (5) orphans and refugees are particularly vulnerable to recruitment; Lord's Resistance (6) one of the most egregious examples of the use of child Anny. soldiers is the abduction of some 10,000 children, some as young as 8 years of age, by the Lord's Resistance Army (in this section referred to as the "LRA") in northern Uganda; (7) the Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997 reports that in Uganda the LRA kills, maims, and rapes large numbers of civilians, and forces abducted children into 'Virtual slavery as guards, concubines, and soldiers"; (8) children abducted by the LRA are forced to raid and loot villages, fight in the front line of battle against the Ugandan army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), serve as sexual slaves to rebel commanders, and participate in the killing of other children who try to escape; (9) former LRA child captives report witnessing Sudanese government soldiers delivering food supplies, vehicles, ammunition, and arms to LRA base camps in government-controlled southern Sudan; (10) children who manage to escape from LRA captivity have little access to trauma care and rehabilitation programs, and many find their families displaced, unlocatable, dead, or fearful of having their children return home; GracaMachel. (11) Graca Machel, the former United Nations expert on the impact of armed conflict on children, identified the immediat« demobilization of all child soldiers as an urgent priority, and recommended the establishment through an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child of 18 as the minimum age for recruitment and participation in armed forces; and (12) the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, and the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights, as well as many nongovernmental organizations, also support the establishment of 18

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