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What You Can Do
End Burma's Use of Child Soldiers (October 2002)
Help Ratify Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict
You can help stop the use of child soldiers by encouraging the ratification the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, an international treaty that bans the use of children as combatants in war.
- Join the international campaign to ratify the Optional Protocol
Check out our list of countries where we think the
government should ratify the Optional Protocol as soon as possible. Click on the country name for government contact details and background on why we have chosen these countries. en français
- Has your government already signed and/or ratified the Optional Protocol?
Check out the list of ratifications to find out.
If your government has not yet signed, write to your president or prime minister, urging signature and ratification of the protocol. Also urge your government to declare a minimum age of at least eighteen for voluntary recruitment into its armed forces. Click here for a sample letter.
If your government has signed but not yet ratified the protocol, write government officials including members of the Parliament, the Senate, or other appropriate body, and urge them to support ratification of the protocol. Urge them to ratify it without reservation, and with a declaration establishing a minimum age of at least eighteen for voluntary recruitment into the armed forces. Click here for a sample letter. United States residents can click here for a sample letter to the US Senate.
- Stop the abduction and enslavement of Ugandan children by the Lord's Resistance Army. Write letters to the leadership of Sudan and Uganda, and to the Secretary General of the United Nations.
- Raise awareness in the media. Write a letter to the editor, or an op-ed for your newspaper to express your concern about child soldiers, and voice your support for stronger international efforts to prevent the recruitment of children into armed groups, and their use in armed conflict.
- Get involved in a national campaign to end the use of child soldiers. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers links partners and national coalitions in more than forty countries. The U.S. Campaign to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers encompasses more than sixty US organizations and is actively campaigning for US ratification of the child soldiers protocol.
- Join the Human Rights Watch Children's Rights Action Network. If you would like to receive periodic information and action updates on the rights of children, please subscribe our email mailing list by sending a blank email message to: hrw-cran-subscribe@topica.email-publisher.com.
BACK TO: Children's Rights > Stop the Use of Child Soldiers!
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