Southern Sudan: Free All Child Soldiers

The Sudanese People's Liberation Army (SPLA) has just made an announcement of massive proportion: they have pledged to fight the heavy use of child soldiers in southern Sudan by promising to free all child soldiers within their ranks by November 2010. To fulfill their promise, the SPLA has established a special unit to ensure success, and so far, more than 20,000 children that were estimated to serve in the SPLA's ranks have been freed since a peace agreement was signed in 2005. Approximately 900 still serve, according to U.N. estimates, but the SPLA estimates that it still holds onto a few thousand.

Since the start of Sudan's civil war, the SPLA has recruited young children by force and exploited them heavily as soldiers and providers of the rebel movement seeking self-determination in the southern region of Sudan. Like most other child soldiers around the world, young children were threatened and beaten and forced to fight in the war, and in some cases, they were recruited by junior officers with the promise of an education. Despite signing a peace agreement back in 2005 and vowing to free child soldiers from their armed forced, the SPLA continued to recruit and force young kids into battle. Their recruitment breached southern Sudan's own laws that were outlined in its interim constitution that was adopted in December 2005, as well as the the peace agreement that was implemented between the north and the south that same year.

But recently, the SPLA has been gradually freeing child soldiers and claims to have ceased recruitment. These statements have even been verified by the U.N., and their new pledge is actively supported by UNICEF.  Now, with the establishment of a special unit to ensure the liberation of the remaining soldiers, perhaps the SPLA is living up to their promises as the government prepares for the 2011 referendum on self determination. So does this action and the U.N.'s backing validate their promises? I guess only time will tell.

This seems to be the victory of all victories, if successful. Many thousands of children, both boys and girls, remain actively involved in conflicts throughout Africa and in Southeast Asia, and it seems as if their presence is never-ending. If the SPLA and southern Sudan successfully and completely purges children from their ranks, the outcome could be monumental: one of the world's most conflicted regions free of the exploitation of children in conflict? It would be positively shocking.

Photo credit: bixentro