Background Briefing

V. US foreign policy regarding the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers

Prevention of the use of child soldiers and support for the rehabilitation and reintegration of former child soldiers is an established foreign policy priority for the United States.

Since 1998, the US government has supported six resolutions by the UN Security Council condemning the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and urging support for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers.20 At Security Council debates on children and armed conflict, the US also has made individual statements supporting these principles. For example, in 2000, shortly after the US signed the Optional Protocol, the US representative to the United Nations stated in a Security Council debate that

Signatories [to the protocol] will do everything feasible to keep even volunteers from taking a direct part in hostilities before they are 18. They will make it a crime for any non-governmental force to use children under 18 in war. And they will work together to meet the needs of children who have been forced into war to save a generation that already has lost too much.21

In 2007, the United States submitted its first report to the UN on its compliance with the Optional Protocol, espousing both family reunification and community reintegration for former child combatants. It stated that

United States programming aimed at assisting children affected by war addresses the disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and integration into civilian society of former child combatants; the prevention of recruitment of children; and the recovery and rehabilitation of children affected by armed conflict, including activities to identify separated children, protect them from harm, provide appropriate interim care, carry out tracing for family reunification, arrange alternate care for children who cannot be reunited, reform their legal protections and facilitate community reintegration.22

Since the 1980’s, the United States has provided over $60 million to support the demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration for former child soldiers in conflict-affected countries. Prior to 2000, the US Agency for International Development provided over $30 million for such activities.23 Since 2001, the US has contributed a further $34 million to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers and to demobilize and reintegrate child combatants.24

In 2003, concurrent with Khadr’s detention at Guantanamo, UNICEF launched a major initiative to rehabilitate and reintegrate former child soldiers in Afghanistan. The United States provided $4.5 million for this effort.25 The program aimed to demobilize 5,000 child soldiers and provide reintegration support to a further 10,000 children associated with armed groups in 2004.

According to the US’ own policies, Khadr’s recruiters should be held responsible for exploiting Khadr as a child combatant, and ongoing efforts should be made to educate and rehabilitate him, and prepare for his eventual reintegration into society.  But virtually no effort has been expended to this end. 



20 Security Council resolutions 1261 (1999), 1314 (2000), 1379 (2001), 1460 (2003), 1539 (2004), and 1612 (2005).

21 Statement by Ambassador James B. Cunningham, Deputy United States Representative to the United Nations, Statement in the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict, July 26, 2000, USUN Press Release #98, July 26, 2000. http://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/00_098.htm.

22 Initial Report of the United States of America to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child concerning the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rigths of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, 2007.

23Statement by Ambassador James B. Cunningham, Deputy United States Representative to the United Nations, Statement in the Security Council on Children and Armed Conflict, July 26, 2000, USUN Press Release #98, July 26, 2000. http://www.usunnewyork.usmission.gov/00_098.htm.

24 Statement by Ambassador Jackie W. Sanders, Alternate US Representative to the UN for Special Political Affairs, on the report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict, in the Security Council, November 28, 2006, USUN Press release #368(06).

25 UNICEF, “UNICEF praises Afghan child-soldier innovation,” press release, September 23, 2003; and UNICEF, “Child Soldier demobilization shows results in Afghanistan,” press release, December 16, 2004.