Abstract
Despite the prohibition of child soldiers by international law, recent African conflicts have witnessed a persistence of this phenomenon, which is becoming ever more specialised. An example of such specialist involvement of children in African armed conflicts is the use of young children, especially girls as suicide bombers by the jihadist terrorist groups Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab. Using children in armed conflict is regarded as amongst the worst forms of child abuse under international law and African regional law. This article examines the almost unprecedented threat to the human rights of children created by child soldiers and specifically child suicide bombers with the objective of identifying major weaknesses in the responses by both general international law and African Union legal instruments. Despite the comprehensive engagement of international regulations with children in armed conflict, they are silent on the practice of using children for the specific purpose of suicide bombings. This article considers the question whether child suicide bombers can be considered to be child soldiers and as such should benefit from the regulations applicable to the latter category. This is established through an analysis of both the general international law and African Union legal frameworks on the rights of the child; child labour; children in armed conflict; and terrorism within the context of available information on the current wave of suicide bombings by young girls in West-Africa. It is suggested that child suicide bombings in a West-African context in effect constitutes a new form of improvised explosive device, but moreover should be regarded as a recognised form of child soldiering and terrorism. Although international law and scholarship do not provide adequate responses to this complex problem, it is suggested that child suicide bombings violate the letter and the spirit of the international regulations identified. This points to a clear need for more focussed scholarly research and comprehensive international engagement in order to understand and more effectively regulate this extreme form of child abuse within the already established context of children in armed conflict.
Highlights
Specific emphasis is placed on child rights, women’s and girls’ rights, recruitment of child soldiers, and the regulation of terrorism in order to gain a greater understanding of the recent phenomenon of suicide bombings within the broader context of the African Union (AU) and general international law
According to data released by Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), female suicide bombings in this period were limited to Cameroon, Chad, Nigeria, Somalia, and Djibouti with the majority occurring in Nigeria (47) and Cameroon (10)
[61] The Terrorism Convention is relevant in various respects to the debate on child soldiers/suicide bombers: It recognises that women and children are most adversely affected by terrorism whilst acknowledging that terrorism constitutes a serious violation of human rights
Summary
Today suicide attacks are by far the most dangerous form of improvised explosive device (IED) used in conflicts over the word. [1] It is suggested by Action on Armed Violence, a London-based organisation monitoring global explosive weapons that ‘over 22 civilian casualties were recorded on average with each suicide attack that year (2014) – a figure that compares to fourteen in timer-operated IED attacks, six where command-operated IEDs were used and four in victim-activated IEDs.’ [2] The increased use of children in suicide attacks has been steadily rising and is as common in African conflicts associated with Islamist terrorist activities, notably Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, as it is elsewhere. [3]. From a human rights perspective, the use of children in conflict can be regarded amongst the worst forms of child abuse, yet the specific practice of child suicide bombings is not referred to by name. Specific emphasis is placed on child rights, women’s and girls’ rights, recruitment of child soldiers, and the regulation of terrorism in order to gain a greater understanding of the recent phenomenon of suicide bombings within the broader context of the AU and general international law. By engaging with these issues, this article seeks to contribute to an understudied subject and encourage further research. The secondary material reporting these events is regarded as sufficient to indicate an alarming trend which justifies the research
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