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Sierra Leone Web
April 27, 2000
A two-day ECOWAS ministerial conference which opened in
Accra, Ghana Thursday morning will examine the plight of West Africa's war-affected
children. Regional foreign ministers, defence ministers and military officials are
expected to attend the meeting, which is sponsored jointly by the governments of Ghana and
Canada in collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO). Over the past decade tens of thousands of children have served as
combatants or have been abducted, sexually abused, mutilated or killed during conflicts in
Sierra Leone, Liberia and elsewhere in the sub-region. Canada's special envoy to the
conference told the BBC Thursday that the purpose of the conference was to come up with a
concrete plan of action to include commitments by ECOWAS member nations to abide by
international protocols for the protection of children, and to explore ways to
rehabilitate war-affected children and to reintegrate them into society.
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