On May 22, 1999, President Clinton announced a decision on anti-personnel landmines that commits the United States to sign the Ottawa Treaty by the year 2006. With this initiative, Clinton cleared the way for the United States to join the more than 120 nations that already have signed the treaty, which is an international agreement that bans the stockpiling, use, and import and export of anti-personnel landmines. This is welcome news for the children, families and communities whose daily lives are affected by the scourge of landmines

MacCormack, Charles E.

English

James Madison University

Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction Volume 3 Issue 3 The Journal of Mine Action Article 11 October 1999 A Promise to our Children Charles E. MacCormack Save the Children Follow this and additional works at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cisr-journal  Part of the Defense and Security Studies Commons, Emergency and Disaster Management Commons, Other Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration Commons, and the Peace and Conflict Studies Commons Recommended Citation MacCormack, Charles E. (1999) "A Promise to our Children," Journal of Mine Action : Vol. 3 : Iss. 3 , Article 11. Available at: https://commons.lib.jmu.edu/cisr-journal/vol3/iss3/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for International Stabilization and Recovery at JMU Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction by an authorized editor of JMU Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact dc_admin@jmu.edu. Making landmines and their consequences a thing of the past Young children are particularly vulnerable to landmine injuries, as they are naturally curious, physically and socially adive, and adventurous. by Dr. Charles E MacCormack Save The Children 0 n May 22, 1999, President Clinton an nounced a decision on ami-personnel land-mines rhat commits the United Stares to sign the Ottawa Treaty by the year 2006. With this initiative, Clinton cleared the way for the United States to join rhe more than 120 nations that already have signed the treaty, which is an international agreement rhat bans the stockpiling, use, and import and export of anti-personncllandmines. This is welcome news for the children, families and com-munities whose daily lives are affected by the scourge of landmines. We at Save the Children urge the administration to sign the Ottawa Treaty. We believe that alternatives to ami-personnel landmines al-ready exist and it is no longer necessary to endanger the lives of millions of the world's children through the use of landmines. an estimated 26,000 people are killed or maimed. Young children are particularly vulnerable to landmine injuries, as they are naturally curious, physi-cally and socially active and adventurous. Compared with adult landmine victims, children have higher fatality rates and experience more serious physical damage and permanent disabil ities as a result of their injuries. Save the Children works with communities that are continuously exposed to the th reat of ami-personnel land-mines. Jn Afghanistan, one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, Save the Children as-sists child landmine victims and their fami lies. The program uses participatory games and activi-ties to help child ren recognize and avoid contact with mines. To date, this ongoing program has reached more than 100,000 chil-dren. Save the Children also is be-ginning a Social Reintegration Program in Afghanistan that ad-dresses the medical, psychologi-cal and social needs of child land-mine victims and their families Banning landmines, Uttk girl !Laming to walk with hu prosth~ric, Kabul, Afghanis111n. however, is only one step to- do ICRCJRoland Si dler to assist with their recovery from trauma. Ahmed, a 13-year-old Afghan landmine victim, articu-lates the hopelessness so many ward ridding the world of these insidious weapons. We also must focus on the urgent need to eradicate the nearly I 00 million land-mines that are currently in place, and to address the long-term psychological, social and economic needs of landmine survivors. C linron recen tly announced his support of the Demining 20 I 0 Initiative, which calls upon rhe United States to lead a global campaign to eradicate existing land mines by 20 I 0. In addition to mine-clearance efforts, the ini tia-tive also will address the rehabilitation and economic needs of victims whose lives have been shattered by landmine incidents. Ambassador Karl F. Inderfurth has been appointed to serve as the U.S. Special Rep-resentative to the Pres ident and the Secretary of State for Global Humanitarian Demining. The Unit ed States has expanded its own demining program with an increase in funding from $68 million to $77 mil-lion in the 1998 fiscal year. The urgency of the Demining 2010 Initiative cannot be overstated. In the last two decades alone, landmines have killed more than 1 million people, mostly civilians, many of them children. Each year • 34 . youngsters feel and the challenges they face: "What will happen to my family ... ro my mother and fa-ther? Why couldn't I have died? It would have been better if the mine had just killed me. Now I am use-less and a burden on everyone, including myself." The plight of children in Afghanistan has re-cently been documented in a report commissioned by Save the Child ren and UNICEF. The report, The Impact of Conflict on Children in Afghanistan, is based on extensive interviews with 500 Afghan chil-dren aged six to 18. It documents the negative con-sequences of civil strife on children, whose educa-tional, social and economic needs are disrupted by conflict. We must allow children worldwide to live and play in areas free oflandmines and provide them with a sense of hope for their future. As C linton remarked, "The world's children deserve to walk the eanh in safery. " Let us fo llow through on that promise by sign-ing the Ottawa Treaty before 2006 and continuing to strengthen our efforts for survivors of landmines, their families and their child ren. • by Stefan Smith, war Child x.rl at the back of the bombed-our classroom was busy examining her newly fitted artifi-cial leg. One boy had lost his righr hand and left eye and was showing a dummy landmine to his classmates. Today they were learning about rhe dan-gers of mines. Scanning rhe classroom in the devas-tated old ci ty of Kabul, Afghanistan, it seemed rome that the mine-awareness reachers were preaching ro child ren already so familiar with living in the heavi-est mined city in rhe world. But statistics are just numbers, and, to me, mean-ingless. If rhe world could have seen that classroom rhat day, few people would nor have been moved. W hen a teacher asked all the children in the class-room who had had a member of thei r fam ily injured by a mine to raise their hands, all bur one of the chil-d ren did so. One young tearful girl did nor. I learned later chat her enti re family had been ki lled. Her mother, father and two brothers were attempting to break up an ami-tank mine to sell as scrap metal when it exploded. I rook some photographs and left the school, walking home through rhe once bustl ing streets of Kabul's old city, a scene char now bears a striking resemblance to Sarajevo, Vukovar or Mostar. Once part of the staple diet of a Cold War hungry media in rhe 1980s, Afghanistan's continued Civil War has deemed it unworthy of rhe world's attention. %atures daily. When several kilos of scrap metal can buy a family food for a day, they accept the risk of death or severe injury. W hen I think of Afghanistan now there are no romantic visions of a fiercely proud nation, the mys-terious Khyber Pass or the hisroric defeats of the Brit-ish Empire or the Soviet Union. The images that re-main are of children clearing mines an arm and leg at a rime, without limbs, without hope and without a fu ture. Had the landmines of Afghanistan been the machetes of Rwanda or the Serb snipers over Sarajevo, then perhaps the present long, drawn-our genocide would have spurred the world into action to help the innocent civilians of this country. But as it stands, the coun try faces a very bleak future. Until the world's attention shifts to chose living with the daily horror of land mines, then places like Afghanistan will con-tinue to suffer a slow and undignified collapse into anarchy and mutilation. • All around me, rubble bearing the seeds of many fai led armies: land-mmes, unexploded mortars and bombs lay everywhere. T he most alarm ing sight was the sheer number of children scouring the wrecked buildings, trying to gather scrap metal ro sell ro dealers. This deadly game of Russian roulette, where avoiding death or injury depends on luck, is being played out by thousands of children Amputees sttmd among the ruim of Kabul. c/o ICRC /Warrcn Cla rk(· • 35 . Amputees are a common sight in Afghanistan, where every day four children under the age of sixteen are killed by landmines, and another four are seriously injured. 1MacCormack: A Promise to our ChildrenPublished by JMU Scholarly Commons, 1999

A Promise to our Children

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