The Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) is named in a list of military forces and rebel groups that are the most persistent violators of children in armed conflicts issued by the United Nations.
The annual report of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict lists 16 different armies and insurgent groups that recruited or used child soldiers for at least the past five years.Children are used in conflicts ranging from the Philippines and Myanmar to Darfur, DR Congo and Colombia.
Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, warned that “we still live in a world with those who would use children as spies, soldiers, and human shields.”
In Sudan, pro-government militias in Darfur and the SPLA were included in the list.
But the report makes clear that some groups, including the SPLA, have recently signed action plans in which they aim to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers.
The SPLA is currently demobilizing some 1200 children in Bahr el Ghazal and Upper Nile.
Another 300 were demobilized since January.