UN News Service

23 November 2011 – The United Nations envoy for children and armed conflict today secured a commitment from top officials in Somalia’s transitional Government to start a process to end the recruitment and use of children in the country’s armed forces. 

Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, secured the commitment from the President and the Prime Minister during her visit to Mogadishu, the capital, where she also spoke with children who had escaped from the ranks the Al-Shabaab insurgency, which is fighting against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). 

“Completion of an action plan will ensure that the TFG is child-free,” said Ms. Coomaraswamy. It would also “allow the United Nations to remove the Government from the ‘list of shame’ of parties that commit grave violations against children.” 

During the meeting with Ms. Coomaraswamy, President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali and Defence Minister Hussein Arab Essa recommitted the TFG to the signing and implementation of a Security Council-mandated plan to end the recruitment and use of children in its forces, and pledged to immediately nominate military and civilian focal points within the Government to work with the UN to achieve that goal. 

Ms. Coomaraswamy visited a camp in Mogadishu where Al Shabaab defectors and those who had surrendered are being held. Among them are 37 former child soldiers. She met with a 16-year-old boy who escaped after being trained as a suicide bomber and was injured in battle. 

The boy’s case “highlights the fact that children associated with Al Shabaab are victims,” she said. “They must be transferred rapidly to civilian child protection actors, and be separated as soon as possible from adult Al Shabaab ex-combatants in order to begin the transition back to civilian life.” 

The UN supports programmes for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups. Such programmes promote rehabilitation of children through counselling, back-to-school initiatives and skills-based training, including family reunification. 

In a meeting with Ms. Coomaraswamy, General Fred Mugisha, the commander of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), reiterated the force’s commitment to protecting civilians, and children in particular, during military operations. 

He pledged to continue to provide maximum support for efforts to identify and separate children from the TFG forces, including through the appointment of a child protection advisor in AMISOM. 

Ms. Coomaraswamy urged all UN partners to work closely with the TFG, AMISOM, and donors to step up efforts to prevent the recruitment of children, and the release and reintegration of those formerly associated with armed forces and groups. 

“With Mogadishu more secure following the withdrawal of Al Shabaab, the onus is on the international community to assist the Government’s efforts towards stability,” said Ms. Coomaraswamy. 

Both the TFG and Al Shabaab are listed in the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict as recruiters and users of child soldiers. Listed parties must sign and implement action plans to end the grave violation or face the possibility of Security Council sanctions. 

The Security Council in June expanded the criteria for offences that can lead to sanctions in Somalia to include grave violations against children.

HREA - www.hrea.org

Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) is an international non-governmental organisation that supports human rights learning; the training of activists and professionals; the development of educational materials and programming; and community-building through on-line technologies.

Run for Positive Lives

The 1^st Run for HIV and AIDS in the Philippines

“Getting to Zero”

The Philippine NGO Support Program (PHANSuP) in collaboration with the Lifeguide Portal - an informational website for people living with HIV operated by Pinoy Plus, Babae Plus and Positive Action Foundation is undertaking the first ever Run for Positive Lives this coming December 10, 2011.

i am being chicken
sand which
i do not
want to
eat.

so i take a shot of
that mirage
and put it
in my left
pocket.

the water stays
as long as it
rains.
the water may run out
as long as it
suns?

but please,
stay.

Dear G,

I, the it, as seated here inside this cold, dark cardboard box that they call your own – your creation, the asylum you have so hospitably lent me, understand fully that all this is merely a joke.

So I won’t be complaining.

Thank you for these little holes up in our roof that lit up when you turn on your room fluorescent light. I know they are holes, which makes them non-existent. But the red-white striped heads call them stars anyway. Together with your yellow moon lamp, they make me want to live another blackout. Perhaps they’ll let me catch a glimpse on how they, glorious lights flicker to death. They aren’t sinners. But maybe that’s just how you are.

Thank you for closing the doors when the cold starts piercing through my skull. And when it begins to burn, get a little shaky and sometimes, unpredictably volatile, I know you are just trying to be funny again. In times like these, thanks for resuscitating Time back to her own senses. She may redundantly be suicidal, but how you tirelessly forgive her - almost entertaining.

Thank you for my fellow cardboard box-lings. Most of them are simply beautiful. But others talk about you like they have had just dinner with you some 20 minutes ago. The veiled heads say “baby without the marriage contract equals no work. No pay, no nothing. It’s in the holy bible. So shoo! We care not about that small a being.”
There’s no reasoning with them. I can’t help but think that the Catholic Church is an underground pro-infanticide empire. Why not? Killing babies is in the bible too. But maybe it’s just them. Or it’s just you getting funnier by the minute.

I’ve counted my “maybes”, straightforward and crooked, in this entire letter. It gave me nausea. And I know you’ve been inviting me to your potluck my whole boxed life. But I wish you to remain a mystery. For in knowing hope is useless, and bargaining - just desperate.

Maybe some other life.

It.

I am a bell pepper.
I was born peculiar.
I was born having no core.
But I lived under chandeliers of fireworks
They flit around for a while.
And I become one of them.
But when the egg with them yolks
Them marrows with their juices,
And whatnot, and whatyes,
And the whatmaybe’s
Choose to joke around
And rain me drops of them tangibles,
Sometimes in a single swoosh -
Back I become unsheltered.
-
I am a bell pepper.
I was born peculiar.
I live to wait to become the firework.
But only until then, can the whole casserole try
To be funny again.

tom cat:

mouse, why do you love me

jerry the rodent:

i love you for the things that cannot be. it makes me write poems of things that can be.
i love you for the immorality of this. the danger sounds of an entire rockband spitting out curses at a nun’s face.
i love you for the distance between us. it makes me long for something i am already nauseous of.
i love it when you get jealous of her. that’s when i know you’ll never really get over me.

a toast to a happy happy birthday! 

seriously now, how do you
count days without daylight
measure water underwater
or lift dead bodies under piles of
dead things?

for when the universe entire
will have to rot altogether,
who will be sharp enough to know
the difference between an overriped banana
and a four-year-old human skull?

— “ashes to ashes”, mud to mud.
but since even floodwaters taste clear 
under a moonless night, a toast
to a happy happy birthday.
seriously? cheers.

Sit brain, sit.

Take that weight off my hair.

For now at least you can let go.

Get a round of liquor bath, Morphine

Spa and maybe some coffee sleep

In our Russian café dreamland

Where every clock says 3am

Where everyone is me and him

And he’ll need not ask how I think of the

Moon tonight, for we’ve drawn it together

For the rest of the world, let them see

For themselves. But he doesn’t have to find out

How I always dream –

Core, be still.

You’ll hack a hole out of my chest

If the goddamn mad dogs say

“It’s never going to happen, you fools.”

Then it’s never going to be. Us, fools.

Go brush your teeth. Minty breath

And an intact torso, what more could he ask for?

I’m counting on you in this 24/7 shift.

Plus on days you beat more than

You are asked to. If you could just stay a silent cat

For he doesn’t have to know

That until we bail out of this sighing land,

I’d still be dreaming –