By Col (Rtd) Karegeye Kamili

1. Child Protection in Africa Union Peace Support Operations Knowledge & Learning
Event
7-9 December 2015
Dakar, Senegal
By Col (Rtd) K Kamili
The Role of the Military component in Child
Protection in Armed Conflict

2. Introduction
• The Military peacekeepers are mandated by the Security
Council (SC) resolutions, African peace and Security
Resolutions on protection of children in armed conflicts.
• Security council resolution SCRs 1261 (1999), 1379
(2001), 1460 (2003), 1612 (2005) and 2143 ( 2014 )
specifically call for training of peacekeepers on the
protection and rights of chidlen and pre -deployment
training on Children protection (CP) in armed conflicts.
• This presentation will inform the participants that, while
the military have specific and very important roles in CP
but it is important to understand that they can not do it
all, that they are other actors who specialise in providing
certain services.

3. Expected out come
• Understand the basis for guidance on child
protection at the Strategic, Operational
and Tactical levels;
• Understand the roles and the
responsibilities of the Military component
in relation to child protection;
• Understand guiding principles and Military
actions that are required in response to
grave violations against childrens' rights

4. Protection by the Military
Component
• The Military Component must have the
capability to protect it self in order to be
able to protect others.

5. The Military Component
Resources

6. The Military component Resources

7. How would you react ?

8. Where does the military get the
authority & means to protect ?
• The Mandate & ROE (Strategic, Operational, &Tactical
levels of command &control), should be tailored to fit the
context of the state in question;
• Training in PSOs (POC&CP);pre-deployment & induction
training, UN/AU standards of conduct, Respect for IHL;
• Resources: strengthen their capabilities, flexibility,
delivery oriented PKOs;
• Be close to other CPA, share with them information
regarding to threats and vulnarabilities against civilians
and children for that matter;
• Have the will to protect. (Military doctrine)

9. Train hard in order to protect

10. When UN/AU fails to protect

11. Implementation of the UNSC/AUPSC
Resolutions
• The Military component is mandated by
UNSC/AUPSC to protect civilians. As
civilians,children are covered by that
mandate and their specific vulnerabilities
need to be taken into consideration;
• The military component is supposed to
prevent, monitor and report the six grave
violations against children.

12. Cont..
• Where missions are mandated to support
the DDR processes, the military
component may be mandated to support
the implementation of action plans to
release child soldiers.
• IN this case the military component may
accompany Child Protection Advisers
(CPAs) when they visit armed forces,
military forces barracks to screen troops.

13. CHILD PROTECTION GUIDANCE
• The objectives of the mandate to be
achieved effectively, will need to be
translated into the mission plans, the
concept of operations (CONOPs), the
orders, and the directives of the military
component right up to the tactical
execution of the tasks;
• The translation of mandate's objectives
into actionable plans is known as
mainstreaming child protection into the
task of the military component.

14. Authority, Command & Control in
UN PSO

15. Cont...
• Mainstreaming means incorporating child
protection concerns at all levels of military
engagements: At the Strategic,
Operational and Tactical level.
• At Strategic Level, the UNSC authorizes a
mandate for the mission that includes child
protection.

16. Operational Level
• At operational level: SRSG is designated to
implement directives from the UNSC. In his/her
integrated mission team may include the Force
Commander.
• The Force Commander wil conduct his own
planning and produce plans, Directives and
SOPs including reporting mechanisms for
military units.

17. Tactical Level
• At tactical level - this will include all
subordinate command levels established
within Military command establishment.
• Tactical level comanders report to their
respective operational commanders

18. Military Roles and Responsibilities:
• Pre-deployment Phase, in this phase the
military are trained on Peacekeeping
Operations from their respective countries;
• Troops and commanders are trained on
several peacekeeping requirements
including child protection;
• To maintain UN high standards of conduct
and descipline at all times.

19. Pre-Deployment Trainings cont..
• Provide training on International Legal Instruments
and Frameworks.
• Rules of Engagement and Code of Conduct.
• Ensure that individuals in the command structure
are aware of and familiar with controls and sanctions
that apply to the violation of legal standards and
Code of Conduct.

20. Induction Training
• The troops must go through a mission
induction training upon arrival in area of
responsibility (AOR);
• The troops and commanders are further
trained on Rules of Engagement( ROE);
• On Information gathering and sharing it
with relavant child protection actors (CPA)
in a timely manner;

21. Induction cont...
• Each commander is responsible for
ensuring the respect of Childrens'
Rights in his/her sphere of command

22. Understanding the operational
environment
• Will enable the military component to carry
out the following duties:
• Preventing violence against children;
• Pre- emption
• response to threats and Vulnarabilities
agaisnt children and civilians ;
• Consolidation (actions to be taken).

23. Pre-emption
• Pre - empting violations, demands thorough
understanding of the environment in order to identify
threats and vulnerabilities and then develop tactical
plans to deter or mitigate threats- by increasing patrols;
• What are the threats against children in your AOR ?
• Who is threating the children?
• What are their tactics?
• Why are they doing it?
• when do they do it (day or night)?
• where are their bases or where are they likely to strike?;

24. Cont..
• What is the government and community
doing about it?
• What are other agencies, UN agencies,
IOs, NGOs and local NGOs doing about it
and how can we work together ?
• Aftergetting answers to these questions
then the Military will include it in its
operational plans in order to reduce
vulnerabilities and threats against children.

25. Prevention
• Prevention of child violations requires
thorough understanding of your
operational envilonment in order to Identify
specific risks and vulnerabilities to children
in your AOR
a.This is achived by working with CP
partners
b. Work with local communities
c. Mission civil affairs and child protection
actors (CPA);
d. To some extent work with local
authorities.

26. Response
• After Identifying the Threats and
vulnerabilities, and the threat of physical
violence is apparent, then the military will
take more active measures as per the
ROE.
• Deter the aggresor from carrying out
hostile actions by making the aggressor to
comply by use of direct military action.

27. Consolidation
• These are actions taken after prevention
and pre - empting the threats , in order to
fully complete the actions then report and
investigations be carried out;
• Military officers and soldiers must ensure
that accurate and timely reporting and
information sharing with mission CPA and
other CP actors is paramount in child
protection process.

28. The way Forward
• The Military component needs to be able
to protect themselves in order to protect
others, this will be achieved by:
• Allocating them with sufficient resources to
strengthen their capabilities, this will
create a stronger, flexible, agile delivery-
oriented peacekeeping operations.

29. Cont..
• Unclear mandates as well as misunderstanding
of the ROE inhibit decisive actions to protect
civilians and particularly children;
• Therefore PSOs must have clear mandates and
clear ROE which are tailored to fit the context of
the state in question.
• Protection of children is an integral component
of the overall mandate of PKOs and a
successful child protection mandate will require
inputs from all stakeholders in Peace Support
Operations.

30. References
• Ref: DPKO/ DFS, policy on mainstreaming
the protection rights and wellbeing of
children affected by armed conflicts with in
UN PKOs June 2009.
• UNCEF(2013) Continuing commitment to
the DRC.

31. THE END
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING