Global II

The Peace Organisation of Australia calls on the Australian Government to end the recruitment of children under 18 to our armed forces. This would put Australia in line with the emerging international consensus that children should play no role in militaries.

Italy is party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1975 as a non-nuclear weapons state. It is a member of both Euratom and the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. In 1998 it signed the Additional Protocol in relation to its safeguards agreements with the IAEA.

In 1964 CNEN was confirmed as the regulatory body for Italy's nuclear power, using safety criteria from UK and USA. It was later split into ENEA - responsible for research and promotion of nuclear energy, and ENEA/DISP as the independent regulatory body. This then became APAT, the Agency for Environmental Protection & Technical Services, as the regulatory body in charge of safety and licensing.  This in turn later became the nuclear department of the environmental protection institute - ISPRA. In 2008 parliament was considering legislation to set up an independent Agency for Nuclear Security (ASN) as the new regulator, with staff drawn from ISPRA and ENEA.

Italy has had four operating nuclear power reactors but shut the last two down following the Chernobyl accident. Over 10% of its electricity is now from nuclear power - all imported. The government intends to build new nuclear power plants by 2013.

In recent years, children have been actively engaged in fighting with armed opposition groups in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Sudan, Turkey and Yemen.

Although Yemen’s laws specified 18 as the minimum recruitment age, under-age recruitment to the armed forces reportedly remained common.

There are an estimated 828,000 Yemeni civilians, roughly 6 percent of the total population, living in these communities. This means that at least one in every 16 Yemenis lives or works near or is otherwise affected by the presence of landmines.

Since FY 1998, U.S. government has provided humanitarian demining assistance to Yemen totaling over 6.8 million dollars. The U.S. contributed 1.8 million dollars in FY 2000 alone.

Luis Bitencourt, director of the Brazil Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars, noted that during the 1980s Brazil's military government maintained ambiguity about the country's nuclear intentions, never acknowledging that a covert nuclear weapons program existed. After taking office in 1990, President Fernando Collor de Mello took bold steps to control and restrict Brazil's nuclear program and to improve relations with Argentina. On May 30, 1994 Brazil ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco, an agreement which calls for a nuclear-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, and in 1997 Brazil ratified the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Recent developments by the Brazilian government have raised new concerns that Brazil may still be seeking the technological capability to produce a nuclear bomb. A 2004 article in Science magazine reported that Brazil is planning to commission a uranium enrichment plant at a new facility in Resende that, if configured to do so, could produce enough fuel for several nuclear weapons annually. Brazil's science and technology minister Eduardo Campos has declared that "the Brazilian nuclear project is intended exclusively for peaceful purposes." In early 2004, Brazil barred the IAEA from inspecting the Resende facility. After negotiations between Brazil and the atomic watchdog agency in late 2004, Brazil agreed to give IAEA inspectors access to the Resende facility, according to the Associated Press. Brazil's uranium deposits, highly trained scientists and multiple nuclear research centers make it the most advanced nuclear nations in Latin America.

Hugo Siles-Alvarado (left), Permanent Representative of Bolivia to the United Nations,

With guidance from United Nations, including UNICEF and the Office of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and with the assistance of War Child Holland and the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN, NYPAW will use education and art - including writing, public speaking, poetry, music, painting, storytelling and theatre - to raise awareness to the plight of children living in conflict zones and provide them with the necessary support.

On 9 May 2007, UNICEF and the Government of Chad signed an agreement for the demobilization of child soldiers throughout the country. The accord follows Chad’s commitment at the Paris Protocols, agreed in February 2006, to demobilize children enrolled in armed forces and groups. Since February 2007, 555 children have been released.  The recruitment and use of children under the age of 15 is defined as a war crime in the statute of the International Criminal Court. Lured into conflict The estimated number of children involved in armed groups in Chad remains in the thousands. Vulnerable children are often lured into recruitment after suffering from poverty or the loss of family members. "When the men in nice uniforms came to our village promising food and clothes – and that I would get my own weapon – it sounded like a great opportunity," said Hachim. After he was demobilized, it still took some time for Hachim to feel comfortable returning to a life outside of conflict. "In the beginning, I didn’t want to leave my troops and I thought about returning every day," he said. "But then, one month after my arrival in the centre, our social worker found me a place with a local mechanic. This week, my supervisor informed me that they will give me a real job.” Ongoing conflict in the country has hampered the most recent demobilization process, but UNICEF continues to push for the release of children who are already involved with armed groups and is working to prevent the recruitment of additional minors.