CHILDSOLDIERS,SLAVERY, AND THE TRAFFICKING OF CHILDREN

Susan W. Tiefenbrun, Thomas Jefferson School of Law

Abstract

Despite a proliferation of international human rights treaties, labor laws, and humanitarian laws that should provide children with special protection from abduction into child soldiering, the trafficking of children and their use as soldiers is increasing. This paper will examine the relationship of human trafficking, slavery, and child soldiering. Part I will examine the root causes of the development and expansion of child soldiers. Part II will examine the international and domestic laws that protect against the use of children as soldiers. Part III will examine two literary representations of the use of child soldiers and the significant insights such representations can provide to the international community. In this part we will examine the most recent child soldier case before the International Criminal Court, Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (January 29, 2007) confirming charges against the Congolese militia leader for the conscription and enlistment of children under the age of 15 years. Part IV will conclude by offering some cultural and economic solutions to the global failure to implement the profusion of legal instruments that protect children from being abducted and used as child soldiers.