Thank you.
Let me apologize for being late. We'll talk about Air Canada later on.
I'm grateful to be here and that General Dallaire is giving me the opportunity to share the floor with him to speak to you about an issue that I believe is incredibly important in how we look at not only peacekeeping but how we address conflict around the world.
At this particular moment in history, we have to understand that the types of conflicts we would be entering into in any peacekeeping mission have changed. We recognize that this means understanding that if, in the past, children were made to fight in spite of their youth, they are now being made to fight because of their youth.
The employment or the recruitment and use of children as soldiers is not a sidebar issue for us to discuss. It should be central to looking at any of the particular missions we may be a part of or any conflict that is ongoing.
Currently there are more than 250 million children impacted by armed conflict globally. Seven state armies continue to use and recruit children, and 56 non-state armed actors recruit and use children around the world. This is an issue that isn't just for us to be concerned about on an international scale. It also has implications on a domestic level. What I am about to talk to you about is the fact that this requires us to continue to understand this issue from some new perspectives and dynamics rather from than those you may traditionally be accustomed to thinking of.
The use and recruitment of child soldiers is a strategic security concern. It is a human rights issue and it is an issue related to the protection of civilians, but it goes beyond that. The purposeful recruitment and use of children as soldiers is something we have to understand in terms of its being used for the sustainment and fuelling of particular armed groups around the world.
It can have an impact on our own troops' morale and effectiveness. It can have huge impacts on post-traumatic stress. We also need to understand that the use and recruitment of child soldiers is an early warning indicator for mass atrocities and genocide prevention, something that I know General Dallaire can speak to personally.
We also have to understand that there are non-kinetic means to reduce that use of children as soldiers by setting conditions that we have yet to explore fully and should be looking at in terms of our own preparation for troops and for those around the world.
In terms of Canada's contribution and our history, we have a long and proud history of peacekeeping, which has a deep connection to the very values Canadians believe in. We also need to understand that Canada has an opportunity to be a leader, to re-engage in peace operations by making children a priority and leading by example. Protecting children is a value we can all be proud of as Canadians, no matter what side of the political divide we sit on.
Canada's contribution to peacekeeping has to be viewed as more than just about the contribution of battalions or troops. It has to also be seen in terms of key developments that Canada has been at the forefront of over the past year such as the Vancouver principles on peacekeeping and the prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers. We worked collaboratively with the Government of Canada last year to create this new and innovative set of principles. At the time, no one had any inclination that within a year we would have 66 endorsing nations from the United Nations.
The potential training role here for the Canadian Armed Forces and the RCMP, as well as engagement from a civil society perspective, needs to be understood, and setting standards for peacekeeping cannot only improve the UN's effectiveness, but also help to address a major human rights atrocity that is currently contributing to cycles of violence around the globe.
We have to have the ability to build partnerships, and in taking this particular dynamic forward, dialogue in intractable contexts can also be something that we are a part of, if we put the rights of children and the prevention of their recruitment and use up front. It can help to cement our place globally and reinforce our Canadian defence policy of a strong, secure and engaged Canada.
What we have witnessed in the past is that there have been a lot of efforts on international law and a lot of efforts that focus on “after the fact” when we have demobilization, disarmament and reintegration efforts of children. There are a lot of child protection agencies that exist, but what we have failed to do globally is to look at children and their vulnerabilities and to see their being used or recruited as an operational concern that we have to be adequately prepared for.
The United Nations has two key Security Council resolutions that you should be aware of: Resolution 2143, from 2014; and Resolution 2151, also from 2014. We at the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative worked closely with Luxembourg at that time to help draft Resolution 2143. The resolution looks at undertaking “targeted and operational trainings for the preparation of [all] UN mission personnel” to more “effectively recognize, report and respond to violations and abuses committed against children”.
Resolution 2151 focuses on the fact that preparation and training of this nature is also critical for key “security sector reform”. That means when Canada is working with any bilateral groups or conducting any training of troops abroad, it must also understand that training of this nature is critical for the accomplishment of those goals.
The Vancouver principles I would like to highlight have four key elements that are critical and new to this area for the preparation of peacekeepers, with the first one being the need for operational planning. That's not just tactical approaches, but how we can change the composition of missions, training, the types of materiel we may need, etc. The next element would be the fact that it focuses on prevention and early warning to act on credible information and to use the protection of children as a key element for why we would want to intervene.
The next would be looking at increasing the numbers of women who are in peacekeeping missions, as they bring critical skills and abilities that also can augment our efforts to better protect and prevent the use and recruitment of children. The last would be to focus on mental resiliency and PTSD and how our lack of preparation on this front means that we continually bring back troops who are also going to suffer and who will have impacts on their families when they come back home.
I would also want to focus on the fact that the Department of National Defence also has launched the Elsie initiative, which is a credible and important initiative. What is important here is to recognize that focusing on children also means that you are focusing on women and girls, on including more women in peacekeeping, as I mentioned, and on the fact that we are talking about boys and girls being recruited and used as child soldiers.
We are also talking about the fact that preventing the recruitment and use of children will help to reduce conflict-related sexual violence, as many of these young boys and girls not only are victims of the sexual violence but are forced to commit such violence. If this is how they are taught about relationships and sexual violence at a young age, you can imagine that it creates a cycle that is very negative for long-term impacts.
I would also like to comment on early warning indicator elements. All efforts at the United Nations to focus on prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers, as well as looking at preventing mass atrocities or genocide, have failed to connect these two elements. Our failure to do so has meant that we have missed tangible opportunities to find ways to try to create the prevention of conflict by understanding that there's a moment there for us to recognize these two elements and to provide tangible solutions.
There are a last few points I would make.
In terms of the Vancouver principles, the Canadian government, the Canadian Armed Forces, the RCMP and Global Affairs all have to go beyond the endorsements. Canada must be committed not only to increasing the number of endorsing nations, but it must create implementation that is strategic in its approach and guidance to complement the Vancouver principles.
Most important is for Canada to be committed to ensuring that the Vancouver principles and the implementation guidance are put into action. This requires support from subject matter experts to work alongside the Canadian Armed Forces as well as the RCMP.
It requires what we call “strategic complementarity”, to build training and lessons learned cells. It requires full implementation, by the CAF and the RCMP, of new training approaches in line with the Vancouver principles; a commitment to the potential creation of a centre of excellence, for example, for the Vancouver principles; and establishing Canada as a world leader so that understanding the prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers is an entry point for a new agenda, an agenda that focuses on children, peace and security.
It requires partnerships with endorsing nations to build regional training expertise, bilateral exchanges between endorsing nations that have experiential knowledge on the issues we are discussing, and promotion of best practices that provide incentives for nations to demonstrate such practices. It also requires advocacy and support for the UN children and armed conflict agenda, but support that demands clear indicators of practical implementation of tangible change for prevention.
Lastly, it requires serious and long-term funding and must be understood as beneficial not just to peacekeeping but to the future of humanity. It is critically important to understand that as long as we continue to see intractable conflicts around the world that continue to recruit and use children, we will also face those repercussions here at home, whether it's through immigrants, refugees or other dynamics that will be impacted, such as international crime rings.
I thank you for your time.