Rabat – The Arab League Council adopted a Moroccan resolution denouncing the military recruitment of children in armed conflicts.
The ministerial councicil instructed the league’s general secretarial to coordinate wit the ministerial councils to draw up an appended document that will be added to the global plan for the fight against the military recruitment of chldren in armed and terrorist conflicts.
The document, a draft of which will be submitted to the next session of the council, will include all legal and human rights dimensions of the fight against child exploitation in armed conflicts.
The Arab League’s decision is in line with Morocco’s campaign seeking to abolish the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts.
The decision will likely anger Algeria’s regime, which has been avoiding its responsibility regarding the situation of children in the Tindouf camps, a Polisario-run area on Algerian soil.
Morocco considers that states that shelter, arm, finance, and train armed groups which recruit children bear the same “criminal responsibility” as these groups,” Morocco’s permanent ambassador to the UN Omar Hilale said in a previous statement against child exploitation in armed conflicts.
During a meeting marking the International Day against the Use of Child Soldiers in February 2021, Hilale emphasized that states that allow groups to hire children in the military must be held accountable by the international community.
Morocco has long warned against the use of children in the Tindouf camps in armed training and military-related affairs.
The Polisario Front, which Algeria backs, shelters, and finances, faced many accusations for training child soldiers over the years.
Pictures of children under 12 years-old have been circulating on social media, showing young children holding rifles and wearing military uniforms.
“We are unfortunately still witnessing serious violations of children’s rights in many contexts, including in several refugee camps, where armed groups recruit children and separate them from their families, with total disregard of their fundamental rights,” Hilale said.
Morocco has been calling on the international community to streghnten means to protect all children, particularly those who live in refugee camps.
“Child victims who are trapped with armed groups suffer from a wide range of violations of their human rights, including the right to life, the right not to be subjected to sexual violence and other forms of torture, the right to education, and the right to freedom of thought,” the Moroccan ambassador to the UN said.
In another statement in November 2021, Hilale voiced Morocco’s concerns deploring the inaction of the Algerian regime against human rights violations children in the Tindouf camps.
“Despite all this international legal framework and calls for action, the children of the Tindouf camps continue to be forced to take part in military trainings, [and are] subjugated to all forms of exploitation and abuse by the ‘Polisario’ militia, under the indifferent eyes of the host country, Algeria, and in total defiance to the international Community,” he said.
He argued that the international community needs to prevent both the Polisario Front and the host country from transforming children in the camps into the “terrorists of tomorrow.”
Recently, Twitter users launched a hashtag, calling on the UN and NGOs to rescue children in the Tindouf camps.
“Save the children of Tindouf camps,” hashtag went viral, with many people sharing pictures of child soldiers in Tindouf.
