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MADRE - Video - http://www.madre.org/index/press-room-4/news/video-born-into-war---child-soldiers-in-colombia-457.html
MADRE
sister organization Taller de Vida provides life-changing support to former
child soldiers and children at risk of becoming child soldiers in Colombia.
Colombia - Born Into War - Video of
Child Soldiers
________________________________________________________________________
July 12, 2010
The shy 14-year-old was not sure how many people she had killed. “When it
was my turn to shoot someone, I always hid my face because I was afraid.” Julia
(not her real name) is one of thousands of children in Colombia who have been
recruited for combat in a decades-long war.
Her story is tragically typical. Years ago, Julia’s family fled their home in
the countryside when her father was accused of betraying the local guerrilla
commander. Like so many displaced people, Julia’s family ended up in one of
Bogotá’s sprawling and dangerous shanty-towns.
Unable to enroll in school because of the cost, Julia spent most of her time in
the streets. Gradually, she stopped going home at night because of an abusive
new step-father. Julia was 11-years-old at the time, homeless, hungry and
afraid.
The men who approached her were kind. They offered food, adventure and, they
said, a real family if she would join their cause. They were from one of
Colombia’s right-wing paramilitary groups, allied with the government in an
effort to eliminate leftist guerrillas and protect powerful business interests.
Colombia’s shadowy network of paramilitaries is notorious for their brutality,
but there are no good guys in this three-way war. The guerrillas also recruit
children to fight and the government uses them as spies.
According to Julia, the child soldiers are called "little bees"
because they are quick to sting the enemy. These children are virtual
slaves; many are sexually abused for years. To ensure that conscripted children
can never return home, armed groups sometimes force them to kill their former
neighbors or even family members.
This is what researchers from MADRE, an international women’s human rights
organization, found when we recently conducted over 30 interviews with former
child soldiers in Colombia. On July 15, we will present the findings of these
interviews, including Julia’s story, in a testimony before the UN Human Rights
Committee in Geneva.
On that day, the Colombian government will be defending its record before the
Committee. MADRE will be there to set the record straight: the government is
deeply entwined with the illegal militias that exploit children as combatants.
Since 2006, more than 60 Colombian congressmen have been investigated for links
to paramilitary groups; about half have been indicted.
When our researcher told Julia that MADRE would deliver her testimony to the
Human Rights Committee, Julia said, “I want to tell them myself.” We would like
nothing more than to have Julia testify in person, but it’s simply too
dangerous.
At a Committee session less than two years ago, Aida Quilcue, a Colombian human
rights activist who MADRE works with, testified about violence against
Indigenous Peoples—another segment of the population that suffers
disproportionately from the conflict. When she returned home, her husband was
gunned down in an attempt to assassinate her. She has endured regular death
threats and been forced into hiding since testifying.
This year, the MADRE-supported community center in Bogotá, where Julia and
other former child soldiers receive trauma counseling, art therapy and
recreational programs to help them heal from their ordeals, has faced threats
and an attempted break-in. We don’t know who the perpetrators are, but in a
country where hundreds of human rights activists are killed each year, the
director of the center is not taking any chances with the safety of these kids.
We will have to make do with pseudonyms and written testimonies to support our
demand that the Colombian government meet its legal obligation to stop the use
of child soldiers on its territory. But ultimately, it may be the government of
the United States that has the most leverage in ending this atrocity.
That’s because the US is footing the bill for Colombia’s long war. Over the
past 15 years, as Colombia has become the staunchest of US allies in the
hemisphere, the US has poured billions in military aid, weapons and training
into the country, thereby fueling a conflict in which all sides exploit
children as soldiers.
Some of these “soldiers” are as young as eight years old, their childhood and
humanity destroyed in a war that is largely financed by US taxpayers. So while
we’ll continue to hold the Colombian government accountable to its human rights
obligations, we must also work to ensure that US policies are not complicit in
turning children into killers.
By Yifat Susskind, MADRE Policy and Communications Director.
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