2023-06-07 09:53:00
Wednesday, June 7, 2023 at 10:53 AM
Oslo – Ambassador Permanent Representative of Morocco to the United Nations, Omar Hilale, called, in Oslo, the international community to take “firm and urgent” measures against military recruitment by the armed group “polisario”, children in the Tindouf camps and to prevent them from becoming “the extremists and terrorists of tomorrow”.
“The international community has a duty to take firm and urgent measures to protect children, in all regions of the world, against the spoliation of their childhood, the deprivation of their basic rights and their military recruitment by armed groups. , including that of the +polisario+, so that the children of the Tindouf camps of today do not become the extremists or terrorists of tomorrow”, underlined Mr. Hilale during the international conference in Oslo on “The protection of children in times of armed conflict”.
In a written contribution to the debates of the second interactive panel of the Conference entitled: “Engaging with armed actors to protect children”, the Moroccan ambassador indicated that it is appalling to see that armed groups continue, in all impunity, forced recruitment and indoctrination of children, for terrorist and military purposes.
“This is the case of the armed terrorist groups of Daesh, Al Chabab, Boko Haram, as well as the +polisario+, which continue to violate all the international instruments of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and impose their obscurantist ideologies and their military indoctrination to children in several parts of the world,” he said.
He pointed out that the children targeted by these terrorist groups are deprived of their childhood, their most basic rights, their education, their protection and their well-being, as well as being condemned to live with the heavy physical consequences and psychological after-effects of their recruitment by armed groups.
Mr. Hilale made a point of recalling, in this context, that the children in the Tindouf camps live at the mercy of an armed separatist group, the “polisario” and suffer all forms of abuse and exploitation, recruitment and enlistment as child soldiers, noting that social networks “have contributed to exposing these barbaric and criminal practices, and to lifting the veil on what has been going on in the Tindouf camps for decades”.
“This armed separatist group is fully responsible for the enlistment of children from the Tindouf camps, which constitutes a war crime”, he noted, stressing that international law stipulates that the fact of using , the conscription or enlistment of children in armed forces, or in armed groups, or to make them actively participate in hostilities, constitutes a serious violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.
The ambassador permanent representative of Morocco to the UN recalled that the direct responsibility of the armed separatist group “polisario”, for the violations of children’s rights in the Tindouf camps, is indivisible from that of the host country, the Algeria.
“This country shelters the +polisario+, finances it, arms and has transferred to it, de facto, its military, security and jurisdictional powers. This has allowed him to continue, with impunity, the violations of the rights of children in these camps”, affirmed Mr. Hilale, adding that by not opposing the atrocities of the armed separatist group the “polisario”, the host country “has failed in its international obligations arising from the instruments to which it is a party, and which grant a right of protection to children, considered by international law, as an intrinsically vulnerable category”.
The Ambassador considered it important to emphasize that the responsibility of any country harboring armed groups is engaged when it violates the provisions of the “Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child concerning the involvement of children in armed conflicts”, in particular Article 6 which stipulates that “Each State Party shall take all necessary legal, administrative and other measures to ensure the effective implementation and observance of the provisions of this Protocol”, and l Article 7 which provides that “States Parties shall cooperate in the application of the (…) Protocol, in particular for the prevention of any activity contrary to the latter”.
This panel was marked by the participation in particular of the Colombian vice-minister of defense and security policies, Alberto Lara, General Mutombo Katalay Tiende Joseph, of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the director general of the NGO Geneva Call, Alain Deletroz and the head of the legal division of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Cordula Droege.
Organized by the government of Norway, the international conference in Oslo brings together more than 400 people representing a hundred Member States, UN organizations and civil society. Its objectives being to reflect on the ways and means allowing a concrete international mobilization, with tangible actions, to protect children, to prevent them from being illegally recruited and sent to fight, and to ensure that their fundamental rights are no longer flouted in times of war.
1686138183
#Hilale #calls #international #community #act #urgently #recruitment #children #Tindouf #camps #polisario