"Child Soldiers" and Child Labor in Sweatshops

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

At 1:11 PM +0300 2/12/03, ChrisD(RJ) wrote:
>DoreneFC at aol.com:
>>If he actually said it, I would find it humorous that he at least 
>>agrees with the US government in one respect.  The US Government is 
>>unwilling to sign onto conventions outlawing child soldiers because 
>>they want to continue their practice of recruiting 17-year-olds 
>>into the supposedly "volunteer" military. So both Chomksy and the 
>>USG support the right of some state forms, theirs, to  involve 
>>child soldiers.
>---
>I think it was you that wondered during the Na Dubrovka seige why 
>Barayev's people didn't let out all the children? I was reading 
>recently "Nord-Ost glazami zalozhnitsy," (Nord-Ost through the eyes 
>of a hostage) by tatyana Popova (funny last name if you pronouce it 
>wrnong), who was a hostage, and she says they said "A 12-year-old is 
>not a child, he is a future soldier."

"Child soldiers" are defined as any soldiers under the age of 18. 
I'm assuming that the majority of "child soldiers" are closer to 18 
than 12.  Is that statistically correct?

Anyhow, isn't the problem of "child soldiers" the 
guerrilla/counter-insurgency war equivalent of child labor in 
sweatshops?  If so, rights groups will likely have as little impact 
on the problem of "child soldiers" as they have on child labor in 
sweatshops, and both problems will remain prevalent in poor nations.
-- 
Yoshie

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