HC Deb 26 March 1999 vol 328 c429W
Mr. Cox

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will list the countries with which he has had recent discussions concerning the use of child soldiers; and if he will make a statement. [78545]

Mr. Tony Lloyd

We regularly raise our concerns in bodies such as the UN Commission on Human Rights. We support the mandate of the UN Special Representative for Children in Armed Conflict, including his work with individual countries. We played a leading role in the establishment of the use of child soldiers as a war crime in the statute of the International Criminal Court. We take up individual situations case by case, including, for example, the abduction of children in northern Uganda by the Lord's Resistance Army.