UN: 500 children in US custody in Iraq, 1000 detained by Iraqi forces

Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy said Tuesday that some 500 children are in the custody of the US forces in Iraq, some 1000 with the Iraqi forces.

In a news conference today, Radhika Coomaraswamy added that there are some 400 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons. She said that there was a rapid increase in the recruitment of children following the Samara bombings in Iraq by insurgents.
Radhika Coomaraswamy explained that since a year and a half ago the same applies to Afghanistan.

Enrollment of school children in Iraq, she said, was around 90 percent now it has dropped to 55 percent. She said that both in Iraq and Afghanistan children were used in suicide bombings.
According to current estimates, Radhika Coomaraswamy said, child soldiers stand between 250,000 and 300,000. She said that the African wars had the largest number of child soldiers. One of her priorities is her fight against impunity and called upon the Human Rights Council to deal comprehensively with the issue of all non-state actors in the sense of how to make them accountable for human rights violations.

Radhika Coomaraswamy added that it is important that States facilitate dialogue with such actors so the UN agencies may bring them into compliance with their international obligations. She said that she would assist the two Special Advisors to the Secretary-General Ed Luck and Francis Deng in developing the doctrine of the responsibility to protect especially in the case of children because of their vulnerability. Link