According to a new report published by “The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers” as many as 14,000 child soldiers had been recruited by paramilitaries and armed opposition groups. (18-NOV-04) 

Women and girls constituted up to half of all recruits to the armed opposition groups Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC), Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), National Liberation Army. Girls and boys were subjected to harsh conditions, including being forced to commit serious human rights violations. The governmental disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) program had only demobilized ten per cent of children involved in the armed conflict.

There were fears that continuing disarmament talks between paramilitaries and the government could lead to impunity.

Context
Fighting continued in the 40-year-old conflict between government forces and allied paramilitaries and the armed groups that opposed them. All sides were responsible for serious human rights violations and breaches of international humanitarian law. Army-backed paramilitaries and armed opposition groups were responsible for thousands of civilian killings and “disappearances”.

Hundreds of thousands of people were forced from their homes. The government’s peace talks with the FARC collapsed in Februrary 2002, and its attempts to negotiate with the ELN stalled by the end of 2002. In December 2002, Colombia’s largest paramilitary group, the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC), United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, declared a unilateral ceasefire and the government announced plans to negotiate with army-backed paramilitaries, raising fears of impunity being allowed for the most serious crimes under international law.

On 5 August 2002, the day Colombia ratified the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), then-President Andrés Pastrana invoked Article 124 of the Statute, which allows a country not to submit those accused of war crimes to the ICC for seven years. Once this period is over, only war crimes committed after the seven-year moratorium may be submitted to the ICC.
Alvaro Uribe Vélez took office as President in August 2002.

Government – National recruitment legislation and practice
The minimum age for recruitment to the armed forces is 18, as established by Law 418 of 1997 for compulsory recruitment and Law 548 of 1999 for voluntary recruitment.

However, a Minor’s Code, under debate in Congress in early 2004 as Proposed Law 137, contained provisions for lowering the voluntary recruitment age to 16. Under Law 418 the recruitment of children by the armed forces or armed groups is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment. However, in practice, the armed forces have not been prosecuted under this law and it has not been systematically used to prosecute members of armed political groups.

In 2003 the Attorney General’s Office (fiscalía general) investigated only four cases of child recruitment by FARC and ELN members.

Laws and regulations on the involvement of children in armed conflict are sometimes contradictory. Regulation 128 of 2003 states that children may not be used for intelligence activities (Article 22) while also saying they may be financially rewarded for supplying information (Article 9).

Law 782 of 2002 states that a child may only be recognized as belonging to an armed opposition group by the spokesperson for that group or by proof supplied by the child (Article 53), although providing proof of membership may require children to be used for intelligence purposes.

Members of armed groups were reluctant to provide such evidence, which could lead to prosecutions for war crimes if the children were under 15.

Law 782 also defines children involved with armed political groups as victims of armed conflict, not as combatants (Article 15), although Regulation 128 only extends the benefits of DDR to those who have voluntarily left an armed opposition or paramilitary group and not to those who may have been captured by the armed forces.

Read the report: http://www.child-soldiers.org/resources/global-reports?root_id=159&category_id=165

Read the research guide: http://www.child-soldiers.org/document_get.php?id=739