Obama Administration Aids Child Soldier Armies

By Bridget Moix on 11/19/2010 @ 09:30 AM

Tags: Government Affairs, Peaceful Prevention

In 2008, Congress passed important legislation, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act, banning US assistance to militaries that use child soldiers. This past month, the Obama White House took US policy a giant step backward by issuing a blanket waiver of that restriction for Sudan, Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Yemen – all of which still use child soldiers. The Administration claims the waivers are necessary to help improve the security – military and police – forces of these countries as they struggle with internal violence and instability, and that US assistance provides leverage to reduce their use of child soldiers. Unfortunately, those arguments, also made by previous administrations to justify continued military assistance to countries that use child soldiers, have not proven to play out on the ground in the past. The Obama Administration can claim it is the “right” intentions, and that will make all the difference, but little evidence shows that good intentions make good policy.

FCNL has joined 28 other national human rights and religious organizations in sending President Obama a letter strongly objecting to the waiver and urging specific steps forward to try to mitigate the effects.