Protecting Children in Conflict

Grahame Morris Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2014 Commons Chamber

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

I congratulate my good and hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) and the Backbench Business Committee on allocating time for such an important and timely subject for debate.

I want to cover some areas of interest relating to the protection of children in the conflict in Palestine and Israel, child prisoners and the situation of children in Gaza. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response. Clearly, the events of the past few weeks have once again brought to our attention in this House and throughout the world the enduring suffering of children as a result of the Israel-Palestine conflict. I draw to the attention of the House my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I would like to express my heartfelt and sincere sympathy to the families of the three Israeli youths abducted and killed in cold blood. My youngest son is of a similar age and I cannot begin to comprehend the grief that their parents must be experiencing at this time. There is no greater tragedy than that of a young and innocent life full of potential being taken away by conflict. In response to an urgent question earlier this week, the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the right hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson) said something that I found poignant. He commented that there is no “hierarchy of victimhood” and that the deaths of innocent Palestinian children are equally tragic. I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment.

For Palestinians, this week’s kidnapping and murder of a 16-year-old boy in a suspected revenge attack and the two innocent teenagers shot dead by Israeli soldiers at Ofer in May this year are just as painful and just as tragic to the Palestinian communities as the deaths of the Israeli youths are for Israel. Since 2001, 1,407 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli military forces and Israeli settlers as a consequence of an unjust and illegal military occupation. Worryingly, according to the United Nations, the instances of Israeli soldiers using live fire against the Palestinian civilian population in recent weeks have increased. I place on record my condolences to all the families who have lost children in this conflict, and I emphasise my desire to see those responsible brought to justice under the rule of law.

It is my wish that no more families on either side should have to suffer such tragedies in the future. I know that that wish is shared by right hon. and hon. Members, some of whom are here today, who have participated in other debates and spoken knowledgeably about their experiences, bringing their insight and knowledge of international law and treaties. Right hon. and hon. Members who share this sentiment recognise that the conflict will continue, and children will continue to be harmed and killed until a fair and just settlement is achieved. Until international law, United Nations resolutions and international conventions for peace are implemented in the middle east, parents of the region will continue to worry for their children’s safety and young people will continue to suffer and die as a result of a conflict that is not of their making.

There is a danger that the current climate of vengeance and retribution will worsen the situation. Uri Ariel, the Israeli housing Minister, has called for a “proper Zionist response”, meaning an acceleration of Israel’s illegal expansion of settlements in the west bank and East Jerusalem and a programme of punitive house demolitions. The Israeli Deputy Minister of Defence, Danny Danon, said that Israel should make the entire Palestinian leadership pay a heavy price for the killing of the three Israeli teenagers, and Mr Lieberman, the Israeli Foreign Minister, advocated a full-scale invasion of Gaza as a legitimate response. In the name of security, rights, justice and peace, the demands of these politicians must be rebutted, resisted and challenged by the international community.

Children are never the causes of conflict, but too often they are its victims, and if the cycle of revenge and violence is accelerated, they will pay the heaviest price. I was interested in the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), in which she pointed out the radicalisation of Palestinian youth as a consequence of broadcasts in the Palestinian media. We should also think about the consequences of their day-to-day experience of being brutalised by the occupying power and the impact that that has on young minds. That cannot be discounted and the effects attributed to brainwashing by their own communities. These are relevant issues, but we cannot discount the huge pressures on the Palestinians’ day-to-day existence. Israel has by far the greater ability to make the Palestinians suffer. I fear that it will escalate its policy of punishing them collectively—a crime under international law—for the violent actions of a minority.

The subject of this debate is “Protecting Children in Conflict”. I would like to refer briefly to the plight of children in Gaza. The Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip has now entered its seventh year, spelling despair for its population of 1.6 million, 42% of whom are children aged 14 or younger. Some international organisations are suggesting that the situation cannot continue. The International Monetary Fund, for example, has said that the blockade and other restrictions imposed by the Israelis on Gaza cost the Palestinians 78% of their GDP, or an estimated $6.3 billion a year. With 80% of families in Gaza dependent on humanitarian aid, the consequences are more than economic.

Gaza’s children suffer immeasurably as a result of the severe restrictions Israel places on imports, exports and the movement of people, whether by land, air or sea. Restrictions on the import of construction equipment mean that vital infrastructure, such as housing, health care facilities and schools, are not fit for purpose. More worryingly, water and sewage treatment services are starting to break down. The blockade causes endemic and long-lasting poverty, preventing families from being able to put nutritious food on the table. That manifests itself in malnutrition among the children. Stunting as a result of long-term exposure to chronic malnutrition is found in 10% of children under five in Gaza. Anaemia affects 68% of children and a third of pregnant women. Some 90% of the water extracted from Gaza’s only aquifer is unfit for human consumption, and the UN has warned that it will be irreversibly damaged by 2020.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. Unfortunately, the Israeli authorities would not allow the Select Committee to travel to Gaza. Does he share my concerns about salt in the water? When mothers have to make formula with water that contains salt, that has huge implications for their young children’s physical and mental development.

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I was a member of a delegation that visited the west bank, and we, too, were refused entry to Gaza. I have certainly heard from other right hon. and hon. Members who visited Gaza and can corroborate exactly what she says. I think that the Minister should make representations to the Israeli authorities on humanitarian grounds.

The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs has said that the blockade is

“a collective punishment of all those living in Gaza and is a denial of basic human rights in contravention of international law”.

I completely agree. There is no moral or legal justification for Israel’s collective punishment of over 800,000 children. Although they are kept apart by military checkpoints and separation walls—my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian and I were unable to gain access to Gaza because of the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities—the children of Gaza’s fellow Palestinians in the illegally occupied west bank and East Jerusalem, and indeed in the refugee camps, also suffer profoundly as a result of the conflict.

The rights of Palestinian children are routinely violated as Israeli military detention fails to safeguard basic human rights or to adhere to international law in relation to detaining children. The most recent figures indicate that 196 Palestinian children were being held in Israeli military custody at the end of April, but I suspect that the number has increased dramatically in recent weeks. I am disturbed that the Israeli authorities are no longer releasing information on precisely how many children are being held in military detention.

My hon. Friend referred to the independent report “Children in Military Custody”, which was authored by seven senior lawyers from the United Kingdom and funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It highlights how two distinct legal systems are applied by the Israeli authorities to residents of the west bank depending on an individual’s race or national identity. When that policy was applied in South Africa, it was called apartheid, and international politicians, including John Kerry, have used that term with respect to what is happening in the west bank. That independent report by leading lawyers, commissioned by our own Foreign Office, concluded that Israel is in breach of seven articles of the UN convention on the rights of the child, including in relation to discrimination, the child’s best interests, premature resort to detention, non-separation from adults, prompt access to lawyers and the use of shackles.

When I was first elected, I had the opportunity to visit the west bank and see one of those military courts in operation. Some of the children are very young. Some are arrested in midnight raids. The crime for which they are most commonly arrested is throwing stones, and there is often little evidence that the arrested child is the one responsible. They are then shackled and blindfolded before being questioned without their parents being present and without access to any legal representation. There are extensive reports indicating that physical and verbal abuse by the Israeli authorities against those children is commonplace. They can be detained without charge for 188 days and then be made to wait two more years before the conclusion of their trial. They are often arrested in the refugee camps or the occupied territories, but they are held in military detention within Israel. Again, I am not a lawyer, but I believe that that contravenes a United Nations convention.

Most of those children are forced to sign confessions in Hebrew. They might have some understanding of Hebrew when it is spoken, but not when it is written. They often sign the confession in the hope of speeding up the trial. Unsurprisingly, given the flagrant disregard for international law, the overall conviction rate for Palestinian children in Israeli military courts—I should not laugh, but this number is like something from North Korea—is 99.74%.

I believe that a form of psychological warfare is being waged on an entire community and that it is children who are being made to bear the brunt of Israel’s punitive measures. I have witnessed those court proceedings while visiting Israel. Indeed, the image of a young boy the same age as my youngest son being marched along by soldiers with his hands and feet in shackles was truly shocking and will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Recent events have served as a stark reminder of the brutality of life for children in conflict areas. As a parent, I wish that no mother or father had to experience the tragic loss of their child. For a serious commitment towards that end, we must understand that recent tragedies are rooted in a conflict that will not end until Israel acts in accordance with international law, United Nations resolutions and the overwhelming consensus of the international community in order to realise peace and justice in the middle east.

In conclusion, I ask the Minister, in conjunction with his ministerial colleagues, to press the Israeli Government to adhere to these international conventions, particularly in relation to the rights of the child.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) and the Backbench Business Committee for providing the opportunity to debate this subject. It is sadly not the best attended debate, but that is often the case on Thursday afternoons. However, the speeches have been genuinely excellent, if a little depressing in content.

We have heard much about the suffering of children who are affected by conflict and about the disproportionate, devastating and far-reaching impact that conflict has on children’s lives. Armed conflicts continue to take the young lives of thousands of children each year, whether as civilians or as child soldiers. My hon. Friend said that, whereas children used to be caught up in collateral damage, they are increasingly being targeted during conflict, whether to be recruited as child soldiers or as the victims of sexual violence.

When children are affected by conflict, it has a lasting legacy, even when countries emerge from that conflict. Some people have physical injuries because they have been maimed in the conflict. My hon. Friend spoke about the concern over the growth of indiscriminate explosive weapons such as cluster bombs. Other people are harmed psychologically and suffer trauma because of what they witnessed or took part in during their childhood. Quite often, people suffer because they have missed out on education or suffered health consequences. My hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) spoke of the suffering and deprivation of the children living in Gaza.

Eight years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Uganda with Oxfam. It was the first overseas visit that I made as a Member of Parliament. What I saw there still resonates with me today. I went to the camps for internally displaced people in the north. That was at the beginning of the peace talks between the Government and the Lord’s Resistance Army, and there were about 1.5 million people living in the camps. I heard horrific stories about child soldiers who had been abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army. More than 25,000 children, some as young as 10, were abducted, indoctrinated and forced to become child soldiers or, in the case of girls, soldiers’ wives. Some were forced to commit atrocities against their own families, such as killing or amputating the limbs of their parents, brothers or sisters, so that they lived in fear of returning to their villages and would not escape.

Being forced to become a child soldier does not necessarily condemn someone for the rest of their life. The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) talked about setting up a business in Sierra Leone that recruited former child soldiers. I commend him for that. If he has not read Ishmael Beah’s excellent book, “A Long Way Gone”, I recommend it to him. It is aptly described as “a child’s journey to hell and back”. Ishmael Beah was recruited at the age of 13 by the Government army in Sierra Leone, but was eventually released. It is the amazing story of how he was helped by a UNICEF rehabilitation centre. I think that he is now living in New York and has published his first novel. He is a compelling writer and the book offers inspiration and hope for those who are suffering a similar fate today.

I also pay tribute to Emmanuel Jal, who is a former child soldier from South Sudan. I was privileged to meet him at Glastonbury last year in his new incarnation as a rap artist and political activist. That just shows what people can achieve. The fact that those two men are out there as spokespeople for former child soldiers is incredibly inspiring.

Many Members have spoken about the importance of education. The hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) was very specific in what he asked of the Minister. I look forward to what the Minister has to say about education often being neglected and underfunded in the humanitarian response to conflict. The hon. Gentleman argued that education should be included in the first phase of the humanitarian response and that at least 4% of the funding in such situations should be targeted at education. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.

As we have heard, this is a timely debate, given the publication on Tuesday of the UN Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict, which documents 23 conflict situations in which children were recruited, maimed, killed or subjected to sexual violence and other grave human rights abuses in 2013. The UN reports that seven national armies recruited child soldiers, as did 50 armed groups in 14 countries. The Secretary-General concluded that last year was marked by “worrisome trends” that necessitate “a redoubling of efforts”, including

“a significant spike in the killing and maiming of children”.

There were 4,000 cases of the recruitment and use of children. Of course, those are only the documented cases and there could have been many more. The report also noted the continued detention of children allegedly involved with armed groups.

In Afghanistan, the Secretary-General documented the recruitment of boys as young as eight to be suicide bombers or sex slaves, or to manufacture and plant improvised explosive devices. In December, there were 196 boys in juvenile rehabilitation centres in Afghanistan on national security related charges. The UN has received several reports of alleged ill-treatment of child detainees, including sexual abuse. The number of child casualties in Afghanistan increased by 30% last year and the UN verified reports of sexual violence against girls and boys committed not only by the Taliban and the Haqqani network, but by the national police. Children were also affected by attacks on hospitals and schools. Schools were attacked on at last 73 occasions, resulting in at least 11 children losing their lives.

War Child reports that one in seven Afghan children will not reach their fifth birthday. There are no social services to protect the poorest and most vulnerable children. One in three children under the age of five is moderately or severely underweight. I could go on with the horrific statistics that are revealed by the report. Some 49% of Afghanistan’s internally displaced people are under 18. That all demonstrates the need to maintain a focus on Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the international security assistance force.

As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian, the Central African Republic presents one of the most pressing challenges. The recruitment of child soldiers in that country is described as “endemic”. I have been contacted by many constituents, as I am sure have other Members, who support the Save the Children campaign for the more than 1 million children who are desperate for life-saving assistance. Save the Children has highlighted the threat of sexual violence in the CAR and I know that the Minister has focused on that issue. Indeed, I was pleased to attend his “Voices of Children in Conflict” event at the global summit to end sexual violence, as did my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian, where we heard more about the efforts to help the estimated 6,000 child soldiers in the CAR, 40% of whom are girls and are more at risk of sexual violence. As the Secretary-General summarised it, children are suffering “abominable atrocities”. We have heard of cases of boys being beheaded, for example.

I understand that the international contact group on the CAR is due to meet next week. I would be grateful if the Minister updated us on his priorities for that, and on what he thinks can be achieved. He will know that Save the Children has called for the appointment of a special envoy and the deployment of UK experts.

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the picture is a little more mixed. Some 30,000 child soldiers have been demobilised, according to the World Bank’s figures from 2011. There has been progress in prosecuting the people responsible for recruiting child soldiers. The UN has reported that 910 children were recruited in 2013 to be used as combatants or for supporting roles in the camps. Most of the girls who were recruited were subjected to sexual slavery. The UN was able to verify 209 cases of conflict-related sexual violence. UNICEF has done excellent work to help nearly 5,000 children who had been associated with the conflict. It is imperative that such work continues.

My hon. Friend the Member for Easington made a powerful speech about his personal experiences of visiting Israel and the occupied territories. I am contacted regularly by constituents who are concerned by the plight of Palestinian children in particular. As we have heard, by the end of December, 154 boys were being held in Israeli military detention, most in pre-trial detention. There is concern at the fact that that more than 1,000 children were arrested by Israeli security forces last year. As my hon. Friend said, that conflict is a tragedy for the children on both sides and for the families on both sides who have lost children, who have seen their children suffer or who have had to watch their children grow up with the ongoing conflict, perhaps being stoned on the way to school, suffering abuse or living in fear of rocket attacks. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.

[Grahame M. Morris]

While my hon. Friend is on that point, I would like to ask her opinion on the specific recommendations of the report that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Baroness Scotland commissioned on the treatment of Palestinian child detainees, which the Israeli authorities have largely ignored.

[Kerry McCarthy]

I have read the powerful “Children in Military Custody” report, to which my hon. Friend refers. Obviously, the Minister is not in a position to take it forward with the Israeli authorities, but the recommendations should be acted on.

Burma, too, is an ongoing concern. We had an excellent debate in Westminster Hall a week or two ago about the continuing conflict, particularly as it affects ethnic minorities in Burma, especially in Rakhine state, but also in other areas where it remains a problem. Given the time available, and that fact that we documented it in some detail in that debate, I will move on. However, at the end of the sexual violence summit, the Minister said that addressing the problem of children in conflict was a personal priority for him. Will he therefore tell us whether the training offered by the UK to the Burmese military was conditional on ending the use of child soldiers? There is also the problem of the prevalence of sexual violence in the Burmese military and the immunity enjoyed by the army. Given that we are providing some support for the Burmese army, it is important that we flag up the use of child soldiers with Burma.

As we have heard, the devastating crisis in Syria has created more than 1.2 million child refugees. I pay tribute to the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) on ensuring that children are not the forgotten victims of the conflict. Several Members paid tribute to his Adjournment debate last night on the abduction of the Nigerian schoolgirls and the need for safe schools there. I was a present at a debate that he held a couple of months ago about education for children, particularly displaced Syrian refugee children in the camps in Lebanon. He brought forward an amazing initiative. He had been talking to the Department for International Development that day and the Minister said that he would act upon the former Prime Minister’s suggestion for sharing school time: there are two shifts in a school, and the Lebanese children would attend for part of the day and the Syrian refugee children would attend for the rest of the day. Several hundred thousand children would benefit from that initiative, and I commend my right hon. Friend for that, and his work on addressing the problem of Boko Haram and the Nigerian schoolgirls. Boko Haram was added to the Secretary-General’s list published this week, and many other countries, such as Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia were also included.

Slightly more positively, the national army in Chad has met all the requirements of its action plan and has been removed from the list of those recruiting children, which is good news. That shows the difference that the UN can make. It is imperative that the international community pushes for, first and foremost of course, an end to all those devastating conflicts, but also for special consideration for how children can be protected, and for these countries to work with the UN on the development and implementation of action plans.

The examples we have heard today demonstrate the multiple and severe ways in which children are affected by conflict, necessitating a multifaceted, variable and enduring response from the international community. The UN Children, Not Soldiers campaign launched this March works in Afghanistan, Chad, DRC, Burma, Sudan, South Sudan and Yemen to end and prevent the recruitment of child soldiers by Government security forces by 2016. I would be grateful if the Minister set out how the UK is supporting this, and what discussions there have been on deploying child protection experts. It is important, too, as I am sure that the Minister agrees, that the FCO provides robust protections for human rights defenders speaking up for children who are denied a voice.

I am sorry—I am making an awful lot of demands on the Minister in the time he has—but it would be helpful to have an update on how enforcement of the arms trade treaty could protect children and deter the recruitment of child soldiers. I am sure that the Minister will, when he speaks, reiterate the personal commitment he has shown to helping children in conflict. He will know that the FCO has our full support for its work to end sexual violence.

I hope that the Minister can tell us a little more about the concrete steps taken at the summit last month to protect some of the most vulnerable children around the world from such appalling crimes and to ensure that survivors can access age-appropriate support, given the particular difficulties children will face in speaking out about the sexual violence that they have endured.

Today’s debate has also highlighted DFID’s role in working to secure access to education, health care and humanitarian assistance. I have not spent so much time talking about education because several hon. Members have done more than justice to that topic today. It is obviously incredibly important.

I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian again for leading the debate. She understandably cares passionately about the subject and I commend her for her efforts to ensure that the specific needs and vulnerabilities of children in conflict are not overlooked or subsumed in a homogenous approach that neglects the complexities of these atrocities.