I scanned Mr. Kessel's testimony. He said, among other things, that this was not a real change, because Canada was just adopting the official terms which appear in international conventions. It is true that, in international conventions, there is no reference to “child soldiers”; rather, the expression used is “children in armed conflicts”. However, these conventions deal exclusively with the recruitment and participation of children in conflicts. Therefore, whether you call them “child soldiers” or “children in armed conflicts”, it amounts to the same thing.
Where the new terminology is important, in my view, is that when you talk about “children in armed conflicts”, you are referring to both the children who are participating in armed conflicts, that is, the children who are carrying weapons, and the other children who are the victims of conflicts, and who are thankfully in the majority. Therefore, the emphasis is less on the phenomenon of child soldiers and their eventual criminalization, or the fact that child soldiers cannot be prosecuted unter international law anymore, and more on the fact that these children are victims of war.
When this happens, there is a shift towards the international rights of children, what is in the best interest of the child, the obligation to protect children, and so on. I am not saying that this is not the case already, that we do not say these things about child soldiers, but it amounts to eliminating any and all reference to the criminalization of children and the fact that they cannot be prosecuted.