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News Story
 March 07, 2007 KINSHASA -- Democratic Republic of Congo's new government appears committed to stamping out the recruitment of child soldiers but if it fails to act quickly the country's stability will be threatened, a United Nations official said. Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN special representative for children and armed conflict, said at the start of a six-day visit that progress was being made on issues of child recruitment, reintegration, and sexual violence. "We have met with the minister of defence and the prime minister, and we have seen, for the first time, a commitment being made to deal with these issues effectively," she said in Congo's capital, Kinshasa. "The issue of children will be kept in the public eye, because if they don't deal with it, especially armed children, and don't reintegrate them, these children will become centres of instability," she said late on Monday. Democratic Republic of Congo held its first democratic elections in over four decades last year, polls which were meant to herald a new era in the former Belgian colony's history following years of chaotic mismanagement and a 1998-2003 war. The new government, cobbled together after a month of consultation, is tasked with bringing peace to Congo's volatile east, where marauding militias still roam more than three years after the official end of fighting. The conflict killed an estimated 4 million people, many of them through violence, hunger, and disease triggered by the fighting. At the height of the violence, an estimated 33 000 children belonged to armed groups. About 4 000 are still involved in fighting, according to the United Nations children's agency Unicef. "We have a long way to go," said Pernille Ironside, Unicef child protection officer for eastern Congo. Forty-two children were removed from a militia group in the eastern Ituri district and placed in the care of Unicef last week. And after initial reluctance, army and former rebel commanders in neighbouring North Kivu have recently begun allowing minors to be removed from their ranks. Although recruitment of children has slowed, reinserting child soldiers into society remained a major challenge. Having worked as porters, servants and in some cases sexual slaves, many are stigmatised and face rejection by their families. "We're working on reinsertion with several thousand children. Equally, there is a backlog of several thousand more," Ironside said. "Voluntary recruitment is a risk. If children's reinsertion is hindered, they can be tempted to rejoin the army."
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