From David P.
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama issued a new executive order last week
to fight human trafficking, touting his administration's handling of the
issue.
"When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a
child soldier, forced to kill or be killed — that's slavery," Obama said in a
speech at the Clinton Global Initiative. "It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it
has no place in a civilized world. Now, as a nation, we've long rejected such
cruelty."
But for the third year in a row, Obama has waived almost all U.S. sanctions
that would punish certain countries that use child soldiers, upsetting many in
the human rights community.
Last week Obama issued a presidential memorandum waiving penalties under
the Child Soldiers Protection Act of 2008 for Libya, South Sudan and Yemen,
penalties that Congress put in place to prevent U.S. arms sales to countries
determined by the State Department to be the worst abusers of child soldiers in
their militaries. The president also partially waived sanctions against the
Democratic Republic of Congo to allow some military training and arms sales to
that country.
Human rights advocates saw the waivers as harmful to the goal of using U.S.
influence to urge countries that receive military assistance to move away from
using child soldiers and contradictory to the rhetoric Obama used in his
speech.
"After such a strong statement against the exploitation of children, it
seems bizarre that Obama would give a pass to countries using children in their
armed forces and using U.S. tax money to do that," said Jesse
Eaves, the senior policy advisor for child protection at World
Vision.
The Obama administration doesn't want to upset its relationships with
countries that it needs for security cooperation, but the blanket use of waivers
is allowing the administration to avoid the law's intent, which was to use force
the U.S. government to put a greater priority on human rights and child
protection when doling out military aid, he said.
"The intent in this law was to use this waiver authority only in extreme
circumstances, yet this has become an annual thing and this has become the
default of this administration," Eaves said.
The Romney campaign has made Obama's record on human rights a feature of
its foreign-policy critique, with top advisers accusing the president of giving
the issue less importance.
"Barack Obama has broken with a tradition that goes back to Woodrow Wilson
about human rights and values animating our foreign policy. This administration
has not been an effective voice for human rights," said Romney campaign senior
adviser for foreign policy Rich Williamson, who also served as George W. Bush's
special envoy to Sudan, told The Cable in July.
Bush signed the child-soldiers law in 2008. It prohibits U.S. military
education and training, foreign military financing and other defense-related
assistance to countries that actively recruit troops under the age of 18.
Countries are designated as violators if the State Department's annual
Trafficking in Persons report identifies them as recruiting child soldiers. The
original bill was sponsored by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Jo Becker, advocacy director for the children's rights division at Human
Rights Watch, told The Cable that where the United States has used some
pressure, such as in Congo, where there was a partial cutoff of military aid
last year, there was a positive effect.
"After years of foot-dragging, Congo is close to signing a U.N. action plan
to end its use of child soldiers," she said. "But in other countries with child
soldiers, including South Sudan, Libya and Yemen, the U.S. continues to squander
its leverage by giving military aid with no conditions."
NSC Spokesman Tommy Vietor did not respond to multiple requests for
comment.
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What do you think about this?
Just more criminal activity by the criminals in the current administration?
Stay safe.
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