Child soldiers being recruited in Liberia
The Government of Cote d’Ivoire, in West Africa, is actively recruiting child soldiers from neighboring country of Liberia, as tension mount in its ongoing conflict with rebels. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, the problem of children being indicted into fighting in wars is a problem wide spread throughout the region. In fact the report’s authors say many of the Liberian children being approach by Ivorian Government representatives have already seen frontline action Liberia’s own long-running civil war. Human Rights NGO interviewed children as young as 13, who claimed they had been approached to fight in the neighboring conflict in Cote d’Ivoire, by army recruiters who offered to pay them 3 to four hundred US dollars as an incentive to fight. Erica Vowles spoke earlier today with Georgette Gagnon, the Deputy Director of the African division of Human Right Watch, to find out what evidence the organization had assembled about this practice, which contravenes international law.