A Human Right group and a Humanitarian Organization, Global Amnesty Watch (GAW) has described as lies the allegations by the United States report over the use of child soldiers in the fold of Civilian JTF by the Nigerian Government in the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency in North East Nigeria.
According to GAW, the claim by the United States 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report which pointed accusing fingers on the Civilian JTF of recruiting children in the fight against Boko Haram is false.
Disputing the claims of the US, the Country Representative of GAW in Nigeria Mrs. Helen Adesola at a news conference with journalists in Maiduguri said her organization has carried out an independent investigation over the allegations and discovered the allegations as “not only misleading but a deliberate attempt to belittle the efforts of the Nigerian military in its fight against insurgency”.
Mrs Adesola submitted that “the instances of underage persons or children being conscripted to fight in the crisis was only limited to Boko Haram, which abducts children, brainwashes them, ply them with drugs and send them out to fight.”
According to her, the accusation of the US will by extension undermine the commitment of the Civilian JTF whom she said are voluntarily fighting Boko Haram in the region, adding that the allegations are rather cooked to trigger sanctions against Nigeria that would rather work in favour of the Boko Haram terrorists.
Her words: “The United States 2017 Trafficking in Persons Report accused the Civilian JTF of recruiting child fighters and therefore placing minors in a hostile environment in contravention of the Child Soldier Prohibition Act, CSPA, 2008. The accusation was expanded to imply that the Nigerian government and military authorities were responsible for recruiting these children even when the vigilante group operates voluntarily.
“A likely consequence of this is the further unveiling of sanctions and measure against Nigeria that could tilt the balance in favour of terrorists as opposed to safeguarding the wellbeing of the civilian population that had been forced in the past to adopt desperate ploys to stay safe. It became pertinent that far-reaching decisions are not taken on the strength of faulty report or flawed research.
The Global Amnesty Watch commissioned an investigation to establish the veracity or otherwise of the US report in line with its stated objective of monitoring and observing adherence to human rights issues in areas with ongoing conflicts. The Global Amnesty Watch has worked in Nigeria’s northeast and has teams of researchers and experts that were dispatched for the assignment.”
While presenting a background of the Civilian JTF and its contribution to the fight against the insurgency in the North East, Mrs Adesola noted that, “Counter –insurgency efforts were largely ineffective in the period before February 2015 when the start of military operations against Boko Haram were cited as reason for postponing the General Elections by six weeks. Nigeria was faced with arms embargo at about this time which limited the ability of the military and its leadership as constituted then to effectively fight the terrorists. In the period beginning since 2009, Boko Haram freely attacked villages and communities in and around Borno often sacking entire districts, pillage and burn markets, kill residents and abduct children and women.
“In 2013 youths in their thousands “armed with sticks, swords, bows, arrows, and in rare occasions Dane guns” formed vigilante groups to repel Boko Haram attacks. The loss vigilante groups came to be known as Civilian JTF (Joint Task Force).
“Over the years, the Civilian JTF has contributed to the counter-insurgency war by deploying their knowledge of the terrain and familiarity with the locality to hunt down Boko Haram suspect, apprehend them and hand them over to security agencies.
“The state government has streamlined the activities of the group through screening, training and absorbing some of them into state employment schemes. It must be emphasised that none of these schemes is opened to minors and in most cases, those that got these assignments are above 24 years of age,” she explained.
The GAW Country Rep stated that her organisation carried out a rigorous investigation to cross check the facts and fiction through a content analysis of recordings of members, witness interviews, review of field reports, media reports, stressing that most of the recruited CJTF were between the ages of 18-24yrs.
Part of her text had the following as their finds:
“The Borno State Government has carried out intervention programmes like empowerment schemes and training for members of the Civilian JTF. These programmes required them to register and provide personal details that include Date of Birth (DoB). These details are available in record archives of the state.
“The finding from analysing these records is that even when the 2013 formation year of Civilian JTF is factored in the DoBs on record showed that those that were captured were of age, being older than 18 years old at the time of joining the group. Other information like educational level supports this fact because many of them being at holders of at least a basic diploma of having completed one form of apprenticeship or the other post-secondary school were well past the minimum age before becoming part of the Civilian JTF.
Content Analysis of Media Reports:
“A review of media report indicated that this is not the first time that the Civilian JTF has been accused of recruiting child fighters in their war against Boko Haram. A pattern was however established that showed that each time such reports are issued and Civil Society Organizations question them the authors were usually unable to defend their claims and in many instances simply disappear such that nothing is heard from their claims again. The claim that Civilian JTF is using child fighters is usually given weight by tying it to the forced recruitment of abducted children as Boko Haram fighters by the terrorists. This strategy simply globalises the forced engagement of children in the war without zeroing down on the party that is primarily responsible for the act, which makes it possible to blame the Civilian JTF for the atrocities committed by Boko Haram.
“Publish photographs and videos were also reviewed, which raised the prospect that the victory gatherings that follow successful operations against Boko Haram could have been misconstrued since children would usually mix up with Civilian JTF members in the course of Civilian JTF members in the course of cheering them on the streets. No video or photographic evidence were found of minors engaging Boko Haram fighters.
Review of Field Reports:
“Experts working for Global Amnesty Watch had undertaken several field investigations and reports in the number of years that the organisation has been working in tracking human rights issues in the counter-terrorism operations against Boko Haram in the northeast of Nigeria. The use of minors has been a red flag that our experts and researchers look out for in the course of gathering information. These reports have been reviewed to collate secondary data on the use of child soldiers. The instances of underage persons or children being conscripted to fight in the crisis was limited to Boko Haram, which abducts children, brainwash them, ply them with drugs and send them out to fight.
Witness Interviews:
“The Global Amnesty Watch sent researchers to conduct interviews that span across the Civilian JTF’s chain of command – vertically and horizontally. The questionnaire included items that interrogated the age at which the witness joined the Civilian JTF, if they knew of any child that was recruited as part of their batch at the point of joining the vigilante group, whether joining the group was mandatory or voluntary, and whether members are forced to remain in the Civilian JTF against their will.
“Researchers interviewed 148 respondents between the ages of 21 and 45. It was discovered that the persons of the lower age (21 –24) had wanted to join the fight against Boko Haram since the formation of the vigilante group but were constrained to wait until they are older. Those that were older than 24 years old were able to join the group right from when it was formed. From the responses, membership of Civilian JTF is not forced so those that joined are able to live at their choosing”.
On their observation during the investigation, Mrs Adesola said; “Consistent with the poverty that was blamed for fueling the insurgency, some of the persons in the Civilian JTF might have had stunted growth as children which could account for the difficulty in placing their age by mere visual appraisal.
“Boko Haram was and is still solely responsible for the use of child fighters. Since neither the Civilian JTF or a larger number of Boko Haram fighters wear uniforms, the likelihood is high that children compelled to fight by the terrorists could have been counted on the side of the Civilian JTF.
“There was no case of the use of child fighters established against the Civilian JTF, whose members rather fight to protect women and children from terrorist attacks.
“Accusations of engaging child fighters is not new and are often repeated from time to time even when there has never been any proof to continue repeating the claim.
“Its status as a loose assemblage of vigilante groups makes the Civilian JTF lack the capacity to counter the allegations of using child fighters, which raises the prospect that it is being targeted for other reasons other than stated by the organisations making the allegations.”
She concluded that “this report found the allegation that the Civilian JTF recruited children as fighters to be an outright falsehood, and lies that mark a descent to an unacceptable low for any reputable organisationn or entity to make.”
