There is need for African countries to domesticate international legal instruments which are in place to protect children, particularly during armed conflicts.

The call was made by different speakers at the opening of a workshop on strengthening child protection in the African Union Peace Support Operations.

The workshop is being held at Rwanda Peace Academy (RPA), in Musanze District.

The workshop aims at consolidating final comments and recommendations from experts from AU member states before the launch of the curriculum on Child Rights and Child Protection Peace Support Operations (PSO), according to Col. Jill Rutaremara, the director of RPA.

The three-day workshop is a result of collaborative partnership between the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) Secretariat and Save the Children International.

It drew 30 participants from military, police and civilians from eight EASF member states.

EASF is made up of Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

While opening the workshop, the director of gender promotion unit at the Ministry of Gender and Family Promotion, Redempta Batete said children who form the bulk of the civilian population should be protected during armed conflict because of their high vulnerability.

During armed conflict, she said, children are killed and traumatised, become refugees or internally displaced persons, are separated from their families, and subjected to sexual and gender based violence, among other forms of abuse.

"Children’s rights also need to be mainstreamed in our laws, policies and programmes, and in the various rules of ethics and codes of conduct. Furthermore, special provisions on the treatment of children during armed conflict should be enforced, and all child protection actors should be sensitised on these provisions,” she added.

Anthony Njoroge, the Senior Programme Manager with Save the Children, said children suffer most from devastating and lengthy conflicts due to lack of protective institutions.

"Though there are efforts by peacekeeping forces to build capacity of peacekeepers on child protection, lack of standardised training resources hampers such efforts.

‘‘Conflict often has different effects on girls and boys. For example, boys are often more vulnerable to recruitment as combatants by armed groups whilst girls are often more vulnerable to sexual violence,” he said.

editorial@newtimes.co.rw