DR Congo to end use of child soldiers in military and armed organizations, says HR Minister

DR Congo’s human rights minister has said that the Democratic Republic of Congo must take more steps to end the use of child soldiers by the military and armed organizations, according to a news report by Republic World.

After being commanded by the US for its efforts to fight human trafficking, Congo’s human rights minister has said that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must take more steps to end the use of child soldiers by the military and other armed organizations.

According to the news report, the central African nation recently rose in ranking in the U.S. State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, the country moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2 and avoided the risk of sanctions from the United States.

The report has claimed that Congo had taken concrete steps to tackle human trafficking such as increasing the number of probes as well as the number of prosecutions related to the menace.

The DRC had also taken steps to prevent the use of child soldiers by removing them from armed organizations and making militia leaders pledge to not recruit children.

According to the TIP reports that cited UN data, the Democratic Republic of Congo saw 601 cases of recruitment of child soldiers into armed organizations in 2019, a decline from the 631 cases reported the previous year in 2018.