[gpga-news] Huffington Post: Georgia Law Will Safeguard Children from Abusive Military Recruitment

[Hugh Esco]

Georgia Law Will Safeguard Children from Abusive Military Recruitment
by: Tim Franzen and Azadeh Shahshahani
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-franzen/georgia-law-will-safeguar_b_444974.html

The United States has long participated in programs abroad that prevent
the recruitment of child soldiers. But the added strain of fulfilling
enlistment quotas necessary to carry out sustained U.S. military
operations in Iraq and Afghanistan without reinstituting a draft,
however, has contributed to a rise in aggressive recruitment tactics
and misconduct by recruiters here at home. Such abuse by recruiters,
including coercion, deception, and false promises, nullify the
voluntariness of youths' enlistment, and are in contravention of the
United States' international human rights obligations.

The U.S. ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights
of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict in 2002.
The Protocol is therefore binding on the U.S. government and state and
local government entities and agents, including Georgia public schools.

Under a binding declaration entered by the U.S. when ratifying the
Optional Protocol, 17 is the absolute minimum age for military
recruitment -- even though the prevailing international standard is to
prohibit the voluntary recruitment of children under the age of 18 into
the military. (In fact, 89 of 128 countries that are parties to the
Optional Protocol have a "straight-18" standard that sets 18 as the
minimum age for recruitment).

In May 2008, the American Civil Liberties Union submitted a report to
the Committee on Rights of the Child (CRC), the United Nations body
that monitors compliance with the Optional Protocol, detailing the
government's failure to comply with its obligations under the Optional
Protocol. The ACLU found that the U.S. military continues to engage in
tactics designed to recruit students under the age of 17, and fails to
protect 17-year-old students from aggressive and abusive recruitment.
The ACLU also found that U.S. military recruitment tactics
disproportionately target low-income youth and students of color.

After examining U.S. recruitment practices last year, the CRC called on
the U.S. to end military training in public schools and stop targeting
racial minorities and children of low-income families and other
vulnerable socioeconomic groups for military recruitment, as such
activities run counter to the object and purpose of the Optional
Protocol.

In Georgia, there are clear indications of violations of the Optional
Protocol. According to the No Child Left Behind Act, high schools must
disclose student records of juniors and seniors, including students
under 17 years of age, to military recruiters or risk losing federal
aid unless parents or students sign and submit a form requesting that
the data be withheld. Many Georgia schools do not make the exemption
forms or information about the exemption forms readily available to
high school students and their parents. This is confirmed by Iraq war
veteran Christopher Raissi, who was working as a Marine recruiter in
Macon, Georgia, as recently as 2005. In Raissi's words:

Recruiters are trained to work everyone in a high school, from
freshmen to seniors. From my experience, the schools don't give any
notification to the parents about dissemination of students' personal
information to recruiters. If parents ignore their phone calls,
recruiters are trained to track down every kid on the list, either at
school or at home.

Some Georgia high schools also encourage students, including students
under 17 years of age, to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude
Battery (ASVAB), a military placement exam that serves as a military
recruiting tool. In fact, students have reported taking the test at 16,
because high schools have administered the exam to the entire 11th
grade. Sixteen-year-olds who have taken the ASVAB have subsequently
been approached by military recruiters at home.

Georgia has also witnessed attempts to open a military school, as
recently as this past April. The DeKalb Marine Corp Institute (DMCI)
would expose students as young as 14 to military discipline, military
culture, and military training. The DMCI would have been funded in part
by the Marine Corps out of its recruitment budget, and could become a
pipeline for targeted minority recruitment into the military.

The school was originally slated to open in August. Due to the strong
community mobilization against this proposal, the DeKalb County Board
of Education announced in early June that it has postponed the opening
date. While celebrating the victory, DeKalb County parents called on
the Board of Education not to revive this or similar proposals meant to
militarize public school education.

Georgia State Sen. Nan Orrock and State Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield
along with other Georgia lawmakers have introduced a resolution that
urges the Georgia Department of Education and Georgia schools to
safeguard the rights of children under the age 17 from military
recruitment, and to implement basic safeguards for recruitment of
17-year-olds.

The resolution encourages Georgia to cease current and future programs
and activities designed to recruit children under the age of 17 into
the military. The resolution also encourages Georgia to implement basic
safeguards for recruitment of 17-year-olds by requiring that military
recruitment activities be genuinely voluntary and carried out with the
consent of the child's parents or guardians. To ensure children aren't
recruited without their parents' consent, the resolution encourages
Georgia to actively provide students and parents with exemption (or
"opt-out") forms and information regarding exemption forms that
prohibit schools from disclosing students' records to military
recruiters as required by the No Child Left Behind Act.

This resolution will be a first step on the path of ensuring that
abusive military recruitment practices of the kind we have seen in
Georgia will end, and that any recruitment of 17-year-olds is
completely voluntary and carried out with the full consent of the
child's parents. America and Georgia must continue to lead by example.

Tim Franzen is the Peace Building program director for the Southeastern
Office of the American Friends Service Committee. Azadeh Shahshahani is
National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project Director the ACLU of
Georgia. 

http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/faq-convention-rights-child-and-its-optional-protocols
http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/20th-anniversary-convention-rights-child
http://www.aclu.org/human-rights/soldiers-misfortune-abusive-us-military-recruitment-and-failure-protect-child-soldiers
http://www.aclu.org/blog/human-rights/abusive-recruitment-practices-not-now-not-ever
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wabe/news.newsmain/article/1/0/1605364/Atlanta/Bill.proposed.to.limit.aggressive.military.recruiting.in.schools

-- 
Hugh Esco 
678-921-8186 x21
http://GeorgiaGreenParty.org