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Official Response

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, officials from the fighting groups continue to deny their recruitment and use of child soldiers. In a June 2003 statement, LURD pledged to end the recruitment of child soldiers and demobilize those in their ranks. The declaration was not followed through with visible action on the ground.

Human Rights Watch researchers met with LURD Chairman Sekou Conneh in October during a visit to Tubmanburg. According to the chairman, “As for child soldiers, we have been at war a long time, some of them took up arms. But there was no training, no recruitment of any child. Some volunteered to help us with the arms, but they were not trained to fight with us, they were not given weapons by us. Some of these children would follow our soldiers, but we sent them away.”80

In an interview in September, Defense Minister Daniel Chea also denied the government’s use of child soldiers. “We have no child soldiers – except in one or two cases where local commanders have received young volunteers eager to defend their country. We have a strict policy against using child soldiers and we follow it.”81

From the testimonies of dozens of children interviewed for this report as well as the visible use of children at checkpoints in the country, such denials do not reflect the reality that children were actively and forcibly conscripted in the fighting in Liberia. The children themselves were able to give credible testimonies about the use and recruitment of child soldiers by many of the top commanders in the fighting forces, despite international law prohibiting their use. Some of these same commanders presently hold key positions in the national transitional government of Liberia, complicating future questions of accountability for their violations against children.



80 Human Rights Watch interview, Tubmanburg, October 30, 2003.

81 United Nations Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), “Preparing for the Transition from War to Normal Life,” December 12, 2003 [online], http://allafrica.com (retrieved December 15, 2003).


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February 2004