The material that follows has been provided by UNICEF
LANDMINES - A CALL TO ACTION
"The humanitarian arguments against anti-personnel land-mines are
morally unanswerable. Only an outright ban will be effective in
stopping this plague.
UNICEF will mobilise all its forces to
ensure this is achieved. Anything less would be a betrayal of
the world's children."
James Grant, UNICEF Executive Director, speaking to the Human
Rights Commission in Geneva, March 8, 1994
In September 1995, world governments will meet to review the 1980
Inhumane Weapons Convention, which outlaws the use of weapons
which cause excessive injuries or have indiscriminate effects.
If governments, including our own, feel enough pressure from
public opinion, they could re-write the Convention to outlaw the
use of anti-personnel landmines.
The UK Government must decide what to do early in 1995.
FIND OUT MORE:
Useful resources:
- Anti-Personnel landmines: a scourge on children 50 pages. An
excellent starting point, outlining how the very existence of
landmines violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Published by UNICEF, May 1994. Available from UNICEF
(UK) headquarters.
- Landmines Information Pack A 10 page action plan available free
of charge. Produced by the Medical Education Trust on behalf of
the UK Working Group on Landmines. Available from Ian Doucet at
601 Holloway Road, London N19 4DJ
- Landmines: A Deadly Legacy The most comprehensive work on
landmines. Published by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for
Human Rights, 1993. Available from Human Rights
Watch, 33 Islington High Street, London N1 9LH. Human Rights
Watch also has full case studies on the countries most affected
by anti-personnel landmines.
- Mines: A Perverse Use of Technology A short brochure on
landmines containing graphic photographs of landmine injuries.
Published by the International Committee of the Red Cross, 1992.
Available free of charge from the Red Cross on 0171 235 5454.
- War of the Mines An illustrated study of the impact of landmine
warfare on communities in Cambodia. Published by Pluto Press,
1994. Available from bookshops.
- Landmines: Rwanda A short video (12 minutes) highlighting the
problem in Rwanda - broadens out into a general discussion of the
issues. Produced by UNICEF. Available from UNICEF
(UK) headquarters.
Useful contacts:
- UNICEF is working in partnership with many other organisations
to tackle the landmines issue globally. These are just a few
of our UK partners - all have useful information on landmines:
- British Red Cross: 0171 235 5454
- British Refugee Council: 0171 582 6922
- Campaign Against Arms Trade: 0171 281 0297
- Mines Advisory Group: 0900 828580
- Oxfam: 0865 311311
- Save the Children: 0171 703 5400
SUPPORT THE WORK THAT IS ALREADY BEING DONE
UNICEF is running mines awareness programmes in Croatia,
Afghanistan, Mozambique and El Salvador to give children proper
information about the dangers of landmines. We are working with
teachers, parents, children, the military and with politicians.
This difficult work needs your support.
ENDING THE SCOURGE OF LANDMINES
Play is a vital part of childhood. Through playing, children
develop their imagination and bond with their peers. They learn
about their environment. They develop an understanding of what
is safe and what is dangerous. They begin to learn about
independence.
But there can be a terrible price to pay.
In dozens of countries, landmines lurk beneath the soil or on the
pathways. A playing child could be dicing with death. The sad
fact is that landmines kill or maim thousands each year.
More than a million people, many of them children, are thought
to have been killed by these hideous instruments of warfare.
There are around 100 million already in the ground, many of them
laid during wars which are now over. There are some 100 million
in stockpiles waiting to be laid when it suits the purpose of
some army, or militia, or politician.
Children are killed by landmines. Children are maimed by
landmines. Children are unable to play because of them.
The only way to protect them and preserve the innocence of play
is for the production of landmines to be stopped and the use,
stockpiling or sale of them to be made illegal.
UNICEF is calling for this total ban and needs your support to
make it happen.
For further information see Landmines - a scourge on children and Reclaiming Land and Lives
This article first appeared in Children First!, Winter 1994, Issue 27,
published by the United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF.
ęCopyright UNICEF 1994
UNICEF