Abstract
Warfare is not limited to combat among professionals. Children are killed in attacks on civilian populations, as in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Nicaragua, many children were maimed or killed by mines.1 The wars in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Bosnia in 1993 have been especially lethal to children. Many children have been killed and injured in the intifada in the territories occupied by Israel.2 As the news media show us, the horror stories are endless.
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Notes and References
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Children of Hiroshima (London: Taylor & Francis, 1981); Helen Caldicott, Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War (Toronto: Bantam Books, 1986), pp. 251–6;
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See, for example, Lester Brown. ‘Redefining National Security’ in Lester Brown et ai, State of the World 1986 (Washington, D.C.: WorldWatch Institute, 1986), pp. 195–211.
The application of the Geneva conventions and the protocols to children is analyzed in Denise Plattner, ‘Protection of Children in International Humanitarian Law,’ International Review of the Red Cross (May-June 1984) and Sandra Singer, ‘The Protection of Children During Armed Conflict Situations,’ International Review of the Red Cross (May-June 1986). pp. 133–68. Also see M. Ressler, Unaccompanied Children, pp. 246–61.
I am indebted to Dorothea Woods for providing this paraphase of and comment on an article by Serge Marti, ‘Les Nations Unies ont adopté à l’unanimité la convention sur les droits de l’enfant’ Le Monde, November 21, 1989. On May 17, 1991 the Times of London reported that a parliamentary inquiry had called for a ban on troops being sent to fight abroad after it was learned that 200 minors had been deployed to the Gulf. Two soldiers aged 17 were among the 34 British casualties in the Gulf war.
Neil Boothby, ‘Children and War,’ Cultural Survival Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 4(1986), pp. 28–30.
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Everett M. Ressler, Joanne Marie Tortorici, and Alex Marcelino, Children in War: A Guide to the Provision of Services (New York: UNICEF, 1993).
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© 1995 George Kent
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Kent, G. (1995). Armed Conflict. In: Children in the International Political Economy. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375536_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230375536_6
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