After six years of negotiations in a meeting with the United Nations, governments have finally agreed to ban the use of children under the age of eighteen in armed conflicts. The treaty applies to both national armies and rebel groups.

Over 300,000 children under the age of eighteen are currently being used in armed conflicts in more than thirty countries around the world.

The terms of the treaty were fought tooth and nail until the final day of discussions.
In a significant shift, the United States agreed for the first time to end the
deployment of under-18's in combat. According to Human Rights Watch, "The accord
marks the first time the United States has ever agreed to change its practices
in order to support a human rights standard."

The agreement failed to establish eighteen years as the minimum age for voluntary recruitment. The agreement also creates a double standard by prohibiting all recruitment of children by non-governmental armed groups, but allowing government forces to recruit volunteers as young as sixteen.

Several governments are applauded for their strong efforts to achieve a prohibition on any recruitment or use of children in hostilities, in particular, Switzerland, Belgium, Uruguay, Portugal, Sweden, Guatemala, the Czech Republic and Ethiopia.

The treaty is an optional Protocol to the nearly universally ratified Convention
on the Rights of the Child. The Convention generally defines a child as any person
under the age of eighteen, but it was adopted in 1989 with the lower age of fifteen
as a minimum for recruitment and use in hostilities. The protocol was drafted
to address this anomaly in child rights standards. The treaty will be open for
signature and ratification after adoption by this year's UN General Assembly.

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revised from the Global March Against Child Labor News Service.