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The Rights of a Child
The way a society treats its children reflects not only its qualities of compassion and protective caring, but also its sense of justice, its commitment to the future and its urge to enhance the human condition for coming generations.

Child Soldiers Fighting Wars
In Uganda, children make up 90% of the opposition army.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
A 'child' is defined as someone below the age of 18 deserving of the rights set out in the Convention. There are 41 articles in all covering the rights of children.

Fighting Twins
Johnny and Luther Htoo are 12 year-old twins. Their followers believe the twins, commanders of the rebel group God's Army, have mystical powers and can save their downtrodden people.

For further Information or action ring or write to
Amnesty International, Student & Youth Team, 48 Fleet Street, Dublin 2
Ph (01) 677 6361 Fax (01) 677 6392.
Click onto the Amnesty Website.

The Rights of a Child

The United Nations Convention on the rights of the child (CRC) is one of the most ratified human rights treaties in the world. 191 countries have signed it, with only 2 glaring exceptions, the USA and Somalia. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 20 November 1989.

A 'child' is defined as someone below the age of 18 deserving of the rights set out in the Convention. There are 41 articles in all covering the rights of children (see Charter).

The Convention has three guiding principles:
  • Non-discrimination.
  • The child's best interests must govern all actions concerning the child.
  • The child has the right to be consulted in all matters concerning him or her, in accordance with age and maturity.

Your rights

'The way a society treats its children reflects not only its qualities of compassion and protective caring, but also its sense of justice, its commitment to the future and its urge to enhance the human condition for coming generations.'
Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary General of the UN.
Respect for the human rights of children is vital to any society's future. To respect the human rights of children guarantees respect for human rights in the next generation.

It is in childhood that people form their view of the world and how to act within it. If children know only poverty and hardship, discrimination and abuse, that experience will shape them as adults. If, on the other hand, society creates the conditions in which young people can develop their potential, they have the chance to grow to a full and satisfying adulthood, and to play a positive role in society.

Children are endowed with all human rights, as set down in the 1948 UDHR and all human rights standards developed since. In most societies, children, by reason of their physical and mental immaturity, are almost totally dependent on adult structures of political and economic power to safeguard and protect their rights and wellbeing.

Instead of giving rise to special protection, this situation of dependence and vulnerability is often exploited by those with responsibility over children.

A separate body of human rights was developed therefore which, while agreeing that children have the same human rights as adults, recognized that those rights could only be realized if the special needs of children are addressed.

This body of rights is known as the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It recognizes that young people can be particularly vulnerable to abuse in adult prisons or in police custody or in countries where there is armed conflict and it outlines how children also need access to the kinds of remedies and resources that may be available to adult victims of human rights violations.

The first declaration on the rights of the child was drafted by the League of Nations in 1924. This was superseded by the 1959 UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which stated that humankind owed the child "the best it has to give". But it was only after the International Year of the Child in 1979 that governments began serious work on a fully-fledged treaty. After ten years of negotiations, the UN General Assembly adopted the CRC in 1989.

The CRC's 54 articles cover the full spectrum of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, making it the most comprehensive body of human rights. It is also the most universally accepted, having been ratified by all but two states, Somalia and the USA.

Ireland signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 30 September 1990 and ratified it without reservation on 21 September 1992. It entered into force in Ireland one month later. While there have been many positive developments with regard to meeting children's needs in Ireland in recent years much remains to be done if Ireland is to fulfil its obligations under the Convention.

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Child Soldiers Fighting Wars

Over 300,000 children and young people are currently child soldiers. They are often forcibly abducted to fight in adult wars, with thousands more enrolled into the armed forces with the risk of being made to fight at any time.

As soldiers, children become legitimate targets in situations of armed conflict as well as victims of war-time violence and brutality. Most child soldiers are aged between 15 and 18 with cases of children as young as 10 years old being recruited. This, in part, has come about because modern weapons are now so light that a child of 10 can use and assemble them.

Although the use of child soldiers is more prevalent in Africa and Asia, many countries across the Americas and Europe still recruit children and young people into their armed forces, including the UK. Child soldiers are often used to bolster the numbers. The most extreme example is in Uganda where children make up 90% of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), an armed opposition group. They are mainly aged between 13 and 16 years.

What can you do?

Write to the Irish Government calling on it to fully and properly implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Also ask them to work towards drafting an Optional Protocol to the Convention which raises the minimum age of recruitment into armed forces from 15 to 18 years. Write to the United States Government calling on them to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Irish Government
Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Hanafin, TD, Department of Health and Children, Hawkins House, Dublin 2

USA Government
President George W. Bush, The White House, Office of the President, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington DC 20500, USA

For further Information or action ring or write to:
Amnesty International, Student & Youth Team, 48 Fleet Street, Dublin 2
Phone: (01) 677 6361
Fax: (01) 677 6392.
Email: Orla O'Sullivan, Student and Youth Officer
Amnesty Website

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Fighting Twins

Karen is a small region in Southern Burma that borders onto Thailand. For many years they have been looking for independence from Burma and a number of small armies have sprung up fighting for this cause.

Pictured right: Johnny Htoo, left, a 12-year old Karen boy, watches as his twin brother Luther smokes a cigar at their jungle base in Burma.
Premier Oil wanted to build a giant pipeline through the Karen region that would pump gas from Burma into Thailand. In the 1990s the Burmese Army launched an operation whose aim was to wipe out the Karen people and secure the route to the pipeline. Thousands of Karen refugees fled over the border to Thailand. One of the groups that emerged to fight against the Burmese Army was God's Army.

Rambo is Luther's bodyguard for the last 3 years. He is a 28 year-old fighter who protects Luther around the clock. Luther and his twin brother, Johnny, are the leaders of God's Army. They look tough enough as they parade around the camp smoking cigarettes and playing with their guns. The tough image disappears when Luther jumps up onto Rambo's knee and starts playing with Rambo's long black hair. After all, Luther and Johnny are just 12 years of age, the youngest leaders of an army in the world.

Pictured left: Johnny Htoo watches his twin brother Luther preparing to fire an M-16 rifle at their jungle camp.
They were discovered about three years ago by an American TV crew when they were just 9 years of age. A retired Playboy bunny in Canada wanted to adopt them. A website call www.johnnyandluther.com was registered. So how did two 12 year-old twins get to be leaders of an army of men fighting a vicious guerrilla war where thousands have died?

The two boys are reputed to possess mystical powers that protect God's Army from harm. When soldiers go out fighting with the twins they feel safe. They are able to brush off bullets like rain and landmines jump up in front of them. The cult of the twins has grown over the years. However, God's Army has shrunk in size recently and they are now very isolated in the jungle. There is real concern about the safety of the two boys. Student Xpress will keep its readers informed of any developments about their fate. Some type of peace agreement with the Burmese Government in the near future is the only way they will be saved from certain death.

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Htoo Twins



Asgard



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