Mr. Speaker, on February 5 and 6, 2007, 60 countries including Canada, and several NGOs attended a conference in Paris, chaired by UNICEF and France, to address the issue of child soldiers.
It is estimated that, at this time, there are approximately 250,000 children under the age of 18 implicated in more than 30 conflicts around the world.
The Bloc Québécois is calling on the Canadian government to implement the Paris commitments, which aim to prevent recruitment, release current child soldiers and help them regain the humanity they have lost.
Since 2002, the use of children under the age of 15 in conflicts has been recognized as a war crime by the International Criminal Court.
To close, I would like to share the words of Mr. Philippe Douste-Blazy, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who said that children who know nothing but how to fight wars are “lost children, lost for peace and lost for the development of their countries”.