Other Activities

Stop the Use of Child Soldiers
Red Hand Day, 12 February 2007

On Monday, an interesting sight would have greeted you had you come in walking to UNIS during Middle/ High School lunchtime. Students were crowding around a big poster, printing their own red hand prints all over this. Why? As a sign of Protest against child soldiers. 

"Some 250000 children, maybe even 300000, we aren’t sure, are enlisted against their will in armed conflicts they don’t understand. In 2007, these figures are appalling, the fate of these children is unacceptable and the indifference of some is worse than criminal, it is an offence. Children, for whom fighting is the only thing they know, for whom war is a normal way of life, or their only way to earn the money they need to survive and to ensure their place in a group, are lost when it comes to the cause for peace and development. They are small time bombs that threaten the stability and growth of their countries, not to mention those of neighboring countries and beyond. Doing nothing to try to address this issue would be morally unacceptable and politically irresponsible. But what can we do?"

Philippe Douste-Blazy, French Minister of Foreign Affairs

On February the 12th is the annual international “Red Hand Day”, a movement started by the International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. On this day organizations and groups all over the world protest against the use of child soldiers by using the symbol of child soldiers, a red hand featured on the left. They take pictures of their artwork and other creative contributions and send them to the Coalition, which uses these pictures to put Governments under pressure to monitor the use of weapons in their country and to take action. This is also a day to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on children in armed conflict. 

Our Red Hand Prints were photographed and posted on the internet on www.redhandday.org to raise awareness and put Governments under pressure to take action.