Obama Administration Aids Child Soldier Armies. Again.

By Mary Stata on 10/05/2011 @ 04:30 PM

Tags: Peaceful Prevention

The Obama Administration is continuing an inexcusable trend of providing military aid to countries that use child soldiers. Congress passed the Child Soldiers Prevention Act in 2008, banning U.S. assistance to foreign governments that exploit children in armed conflict. Children suffer higher mortality, disease and injury rates in combat situations than adults. They are also likely to experience trauma and stigma after a conflict ends, limiting their opportunity to lead productive lives as adults. The Child Soldiers Prevention Act aims to deter countries from this practice and creates incentives to end their reliance on children as soldiers.

The Administration shocked human rights advocates last year when they waived military aid restrictions for Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, and Yemen. All of these countries have been widely implicated in exploiting children as soldiers. The Obama Administration claimed last year that the waivers were necessary to help improve the military and police of these countries as they struggle with internal violence and instability. U.S. assistance, the Administration argues, provides leverage to reduce their use of child soldiers.

A year later, the Administration is again waiving the military aid restrictions for these four countries. This news comes soon after the Pentagon announced their intentions to provide $53 million in military aid to Bahrain, amid daily reports of atrocities by the government against its people. As Bridget wrote last week, the Obama Administration is establishing an Atrocities Prevention Board while enabling human rights violations through irresponsible military assistance.

Providing military assistance to governments that exploit their most vulnerable population is unacceptable. Until these policies are reversed, the human cost will remain too high as the U.S. enables rather than prevents atrocities.