The United States on Wednesday launched an initiative to rehabilitate former child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as part of a worldwide push to wipe out the phenomenon.
US Labour Secretary Elaine Chao said that the ”forced recruitment of children as combatants is one of the worst forms of child labour and must be eliminated”.
The DRC bid is part of a $13-million (10,5-million euros) initiative by the US Labour Department, Caho, who is on a swing through central and western Africa, said. Seven million dollars has been earmarked for four African nations.
The programme to eradicate child soldiers is being financed through the International Labour Organisation.
”Here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, encouraging progress has been made in demobilising and repatriating child soldiers,” she said.
Nearly 30 000 child soldiers have been registered in the east of the DRC, according to the UN Children’s Fund, Unicef.
The US official appealed to the international community to support DRC’s efforts to help child soldiers reintegrate into society.
The United States also needed greater cooperation and financial help with the task, she added.
Two former child soldiers, recruited at the age of 11 in the east of the country in 1996 and 1998 and who have resumed their secondary school studies, read a poem during the launch calling for the end of the war.
The conflict in the DRC has claimed some 2,5-million lives since it erupted in August 1998. A transitional government to move the vast central African country towards a stable peace has been in place since earlier this year.
Chao is due to leave the DRC capital, Kinshasa, on Thursday and to continue her four-day trip heading to Ghana and Benin as part of efforts to raise awareness about all forms of child labour. – Sapa-AFP