Laura Perez, IIHA Helen Hamlyn Senior Fellow, Presents at the UN Matters: Spotlight on Women and Girls Conference
November 25, New York — Laura Perez, Helen Hamlyn Senior Fellow at the Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, presented at the conference, UN Matters: Spotlight on Women and Girls, at Fordham University’s Law School. The event, co-hosted by Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service and the International Health Awareness Network, examined the United Nations’ impact on sustainable development, protection of migrants and refugees, and the human rights of women and children. The occasion celebrated four significant anniversaries of UN initiatives, including, the 1-year anniversary of the Global Compacts on Migration and Refugees, the 20-year anniversary of the Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, the 23-year anniversary of the Beijing Conference on Women’s Rights, and the 30-year anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Ms. Perez, who oversees the undergraduate and graduate programs in humanitarian studies at the Institute, is an expert on the protection of children in situations of armed conflict and on the UN Security Council’s children and armed conflict agenda. With 15 years of experience working on these issues in New York, Geneva, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, and Nigeria, Ms. Perez took part in the first panel, The Human Rights of Women & Children, presenting on the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Mr. Perez began her presentation with an introduction to the CRC, which was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1989. While it is the most rapidly and widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, the United States remains the only UN Member State to not have ratified the CRC. With 54 articles guaranteeing over 40 substantive rights for children, the impact of the CRC on the everyday lives of children is staggering. As Ms. Perez highlights in her presentation, an estimated 25 million child marriages have been prevented due to progress during the past decade, and an estimated 130,000 children have been released globally from armed forces or armed groups in the past 20 years.
Ms. Perez also discussed the impact of the CRC on the legal framework for children and armed conflict, including through the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. She did so by showing the UNICEF USA video, A Child Soldier Is Freed in South Sudan, showcasing the story of James, who was only 14 years old when he was forced into becoming a child soldier.
Ms. Perez elaborated on James’ story, highlighting that “one of the challenges we face with the issue of child soldiering is that, sometimes, leaders of armed forces or opposition forces, or even of certain governments, were child soldiers themselves…. It’s very hard to then convince them to release children from their ranks or to persuade them that recruiting children is not in the interest of the nation.”
When looking for ways to release and reintegrate a former child soldier back into their community or society, “[the process] begins with a negotiation to release [the] children and their physical separation from armed forces and armed groups.” Ms. Perez reveals that this process is fraught with varying obstacles, depending on the actors involved in the negotiation. Release and reintegration, for example, “is easier to do when dealing with traditional armed groups where the armed groups are separate from families or separate from communities. It’s a lot harder to do in contexts where you have self-defense militias or community-based armed groups where the armed group is formed in the community or by the family in situations where the government armed forces are not present or protect only certain communities.”
Reintegrating child soldiers is a long road to recovery since the stage of reintegration faces subsequent steps of reunification and reconciliation. Ms. Perez notes that families often lose track of their children who have been recruited through abduction or by force, requiring family tracing to take place.
Most challenging of all, Ms. Perez highlights, is that “successful reintegration often requires reconciliation, especially when children have been forced to commit atrocities against their communities. This is a powerful recruitment strategy that prevents children from leaving the armed groups.” To illustrate this point, Ms. Perez referenced Joseph Kony, head of the Lord’s Resistance Army, “who forced children to either rape their mothers or kill their fathers as a way of making sure that their communities would never take them back.” Though the community may struggle with accepting the return of a child soldier, Ms. Perez also showcased complex stories of children who face their own struggles with reintegration. The video by Child Soldiers International, What the Girls Say: The Difficult Journey Home, illustrates this point through the narration of Justine’s journey, a girl rejected by her community in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
While the conference focused on the progress that has been made across the decades of these UN initiatives, it also concentrated on what must be accomplished going forward. Thus, Ms. Perez ended her presentation with remaining and new challenges to the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child. These include that one in four children live in a country affected by conflict or disaster, that more than 50 million children have migrated across borders or have been forcibly displaced, and that governments are increasingly detaining former child soldiers on national security charges under counter-terrorism legislation.
About the IIHA
The Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs (IIHA) prepares current and future aid workers with the knowledge and skills needed to respond effectively in times of humanitarian crisis and disaster. Our courses are borne of an interdisciplinary curriculum that combines academic theory with the practical experience of seasoned humanitarian professionals. The IIHA also publishes on a wide range of humanitarian topics and regularly hosts a number of events in the New York area, including the annual Humanitarian Blockchain Summit and Design for Humanity Summit.
For more information or media inquiries, please contact: Camille Giacovas, Communications & Research Officer, cgiacovas@fordham.edu
