SOUTH SUDAN / COOMARASWAMY

UN special envoy for children in armed conflict Radhika Coomarswamy said in an interview today that the action plan deal signed this week with the SPLA which renewed their commitment to release all children within their ranks could lead to 2,000 more children being released soon. UNMISS

• Categories: News & Features / News Stories / Unifeed
• Video Length: 00:02:09
• Production Date: 16 March 2012
• Asset Language: Original
• Corporate Name: UNITED NATIONS MISSION IN SOUTH SUDAN – UNMISS
• Subject Topical: DISARMAMENT; EDUCATION; CHILD SOLDIERS
• Geographic Subject: SOUTH SUDAN
• MAMS Id: U120316j

Description

STORY: SOUTH SUDAN / COOMARASWAMY
TRT: 2.09
SOURCE: UNMISS
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 16 MARCH 2012, SOUTH SUDAN

Shotlist

1. Wide shot, Coomaraswamy and UNMISS Producer talking
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict:
“As part of the UN Security Council process the Secretary-General has to give a list of parties that recruit children as child soldiers and there is a possibility of sanctions against this party if they become persistent violators. So the SPLA has been on this list since 2006 so we are trying to delist them and to do that they have to enter an action plan, this includes having a program for the identification and release of these children, then the verification of that release and finally a reintegration programs for these children.”
3. Cutaway, Coomaraswamy and UNMISS Producer talking
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict:
“The SPLA in 2009 did sign an agreement when they were a movement and I must say since 2005 over 3,000 children have been released already. We are expecting now preparing for two thousand more but the majority of this is not coming from the SPLA proper which the main barracks and the main training centres seem to be child free but for some of the more regional and local divisions and also from the militias that are being integrated into the SPLA. So the members are coming from there, we’re planning for two thousand. UNICEF would be in charge of reintegrating these children along with the DDR Commission and the Ministry for Gender and Social Welfare.”
5. Cutaway, Coomaraswamy’s hands
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict:
“We feel that despite austerity measures education should remain a major priority that really the country cannot get back on its feet until its education sector gets back on its feet. So we are urging that that remain a priority even in the austerity budget.”
7. Wide shot, Radhika Coomaraswamy and interviewer

Storyline

The United Nations (UN) Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Child Soldiers and Armed Conflict said today in South Sudan that the action plan signed earlier this week with South Sudan's army, which renewed its commitment to release all children within its ranks, could lead to 2,000 more children being let go soon.

Radhika Coomaraswamy also stressed that the deal could lead to South Sudan’s being delisted from the Secretary-General’s list of nations that use and recruit child soldiers.

Coomaraswamy said the SPLA – the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army – has been on the list of parties that recruit children as child soldiers since 2006 and had, as a result, been vulnerable to sanctions.

To be delisted a country has to enter into an action plan with the UN, which South Sudan signed on Monday (12 March). That plan, she noted, included establishment of a program for the “identification and release of these children” followed by a “verification of that release and finally a reintegration programs for these children.”

She said the SPLA had signed an agreement in 2009 when they were still a “movement” rather than the official army of the world’s new nation, and that agreement eventually led to the release of 3,000 children.

She said that South Sudan was now preparing for the release of an additional 2,000, with the majority coming not from the SPLA proper, since the main barracks and the main training centres seem, she said, to be “child free,” but from for some regional and local divisions, as well as the militias that are being integrated into the SPLA.

“The members are coming from there,” she said, noting that UNICEF would be in charge of reintegrating those children along with the country’s DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration) Commission and the Ministry for Gender and Social Welfare.

She stressed that the government’s current austerity measures to address budgetary shortfalls, “education should remain a major priority” since the “country cannot get back on its feet until its education sector gets back on its feet.” As a result she was urging that education “remain a priority even in the austerity budget.”