Luxembourg2

Michelle S Committee UNICEF Country: Luxembourg Children and Armed Conflict  **Background** Abuse and years of therapy is what children in the army face every day. The issue of children in the army is against human rights yet most countries practice it every single day. Those children that go into the army are mislead believing that they will be protected by the army or need a way to escape the poverty in their country. What they don’t see is the years they will suffer of drug abuse, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse. There is no right estimate on how many kids are in the army but most say 300,000 are in risk of dying everyday. In the last decade 2 million children were killed due to armed conflict. With some many deaths why hasn’t anyone done anything most ask? Well there is not much you can do if the children are doing it voluntarily. With the risks in general girls under the age of 18 have harder with the risks of being sexually abused. With these depressing issues another issue forms which is HIV/aids being spread. Though there are so many I problems concerning children in the army it is no tolerated by the UN and its prohibited in mostly all countries. **UN Involvement** The United Nations UNICEF has contributed a lot to the cause and so NGO. One of their many attempts to help was with the Optional Protocol to the convention on the Rights of the child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict that was put into action in the year of 2002. It made that the age of volunteering be over the age of 18. Also they put into affect looking out for signs of children in armed conflict. Also CARICOM  was  established as a non government which works on the issues of children in armed conflict. Furthermore, they have made the convention rights of the children making it known to all countries how wrong killing children is. **Country Policy and Involvement** Luxembourg has may be a small country yet they are clearly against children being abused just for cheaper soldiers. They have agreed to raise the voluntary enlistment age to 18. Furthermore, they have financed projects for the protection rehabilitation of children and have contributed to nongovernmental organizations. Has had helped United Nations relief and works agency for Palestine refugees in the near east (UNRWA). we have participated in coming up with solutions for this issue and though Luxembourg is small they have demonstrated their stance on the issues. **Solutions** To lower the numbers of children going into the army they should continue to enforce countries to have the minimum age of 18 to be able to join the army. Also we believe that countries should have rehabilitation hospitals to take care of them after the traumatic events they had to see. Also we believe we should have a charity to help families in need so there children won’t be forced to endure such a tragic life. We as a country believe that solutions come from example though we are a small country we would like to propose an agreement with the countries in the UN to sign in 8 years so that we can slowly stop this abuse to our children and really to ourselves.