YouSaid · the spoken record

Whitaker

lines on the record
17
first
2014-09-08
most recent
2014-09-08
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1
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un-security-council

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  1. “Unless we are there to meet them with open arms, open homes and open schools, their wars will never end, and neither will ours.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  2. “In the last two years, we have coalesced around this issue in unprecedented ways and have made important strides towards ending the use of child soldiers around the world. Countries that have long been among the most egregious violators are now showing a true will to reform. The Security Council and the international community must continue their support for such efforts without compromise or exception, and, just as important, we must provide the resources necessary to put in place and strengthen the programmes we need to truly rebuild these children's lives. It is impossible for us to comprehend the magnitude of a child soldier's pain - how deep his wounds, how heavy her burden. How alone such children must feel when they return from the battlefield to a world they do not recognize.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  3. “Rather, it is incumbent on all ofus to muster the will and devote the resources to create safe environments for these children and former child soldiers so that they can receive those lessons and move forward with their lives. Helping children rebuild their lives after such unfathomable traumas is central to the Children, Not Soldiers campaign. Reintegration is a part of each and every action plan signed by Governments with the United Nations. For the children living in those countries, the actions we have promised cannot come soon enough. By the end of 2016, we want to be able to tell children not only that they will grow up protected from recruitment and use by Government forces in conflict, but also that current child soldiers will be cared for when they are brought home. The objective is ambitious, but not unrealistic.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  4. “When the fighting broke out last December, I was heart-broken to learn that so many of our youths were impacted by the conflict. But I was also incredibly proud when I read their reports and saw that they were using their training to reach across ethnic lines, to contact each other and to coordinate their efforts as they travelled around the country advocating for peace. They have shown me the beauty of the spirit of the people of South Sudan. They give me hope, hope that even the most vicious cycles of violence, the most intractable conflicts can be stopped. I have seen the transformative power that peace and diversity education can have on young people. But for most children in war- torn regions, and especially for former child soldiers, those lessons do not come naturally.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  5. “It is essential that the Council and the international community devote the resources needed to heal such children in the present and to make sure that they do not become soldiers again in the future. It is that same underlying philosophy - that we must educate and rehabilitate the victims of today's violence to prevent tomorrow's conflicts - that has been at the centre of the work that my foundation, the Whitaker Peace and Development Initiative, has carried out in Uganda, South Sudan, Mexico, and soon in other countries, too. I have watched as old patterns of violence and discrimination have been broken. When we started our programme in South Sudan in 2012, we recruited youths from all of the region's major ethnic groups.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  6. “She cares for them and teaches them. She makes them whole again. Okello Sam, a former child soldier himself, has opened a school where he educates and rehabilitates children who have been soldiers and victims of war. I have seen students at those schools transformed from soldiers back into children. And I have watched as they have grown up to be dynamic, intelligent, and hopeful young men and women who will be voices for peace and change in their communities and will help end the cycles of violence that have existed for so long in these regions. More programmes of that kind and more support for existing ones are needed. UNICEF in particular works with hundreds of non-governmental organizations that provide services to former child soldiers and children affected by conflict.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  7. “I visited an internally displaced persons camp a few years ago and spoke with a girl who had been a child soldier and, because of that, was completely ostracized when she returned to civilization. It was a crowded camp, acres of mud huts all around, and not a soul would talk to her. "They say I am crazy," she said, "and I may be, because I do things, and I do not know why. They say I am stupid, and I may be, because I do not know how to do the things that everyone else can do." I am not telling these stories to suggest that there is no hope for such children. On the contrary, I have been moved beyond words by the work that so many dedicated individuals have done for former child soldiers. In Gulu in Uganda, Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe has created a home for girls and women whose lives have been shattered by violence and sexual exploitation.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  8. “He left, found where he had buried his gear and his weapon; he dug it all up, and went back to the same LRA that had killed his parents. This is not a parable; it is a true story about a real boy. But it encapsulates the struggle that thousands of other child soldiersjust like him face. Child soldiers are trapped in a prison without walls. Even after their wars are over, many of them cannot go home, because they feel safer, more at home in an army camp than with a loving family. That leads to a vicious cycle of violence where, during today's wars, the seeds of tomorrow's battles are sown, because we have created a generation of soldiers-in-waiting, for whom war is more normal than peace. That is true of girls I have met as well, many of whom were forced to commit unspeakable acts of violence, or were coerced into sexual slavery.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  9. “He and his parents had been captured by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA trained the boy as a soldier, and they forced his mother and father into labour service. When his parents could not work anymore, the boy looked on helplessly as the LRA executed them, right in front of him. One day, he saw an opportunity to escape. The boy ran from the camp, found a place to bury his uniform, his gun and his army gear, and wandered alone through the bush. He came upon a family. They took him in, they fed him. The boy told me that, in that moment, as he was sitting down to eat dinner with those strangers, he suddenly felt so afraid. Here he was, in that warm home with a normal family, and he had no idea how to behave, how to talk to them, how to eat like them.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  10. “For so many of those children, war and violence are all that they have ever known, and if we do not take it upon ourselves to teach them something new, then they are just soldiers-in-waiting. And when another war breaks out, only five or ten years in the future, they will be the first ones recruited to go back to the battlefield. We must act to prevent this. Not only because those children deserve the chance to live normal, healthy lives, but also because we have an opportunity to prevent future violence. If we can make such children emotionally whole again and restore a sense of normalcy to their lives, then they will want to put down their arms for good, and, instead of perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence, they will be able to help build a peaceful future for their country. There was a former child soldier I met in Uganda.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  11. “But there is one common and stubborn challenge that arises whenever we attempt to liberate children serving in armed groups, and that is that reintegrating former child soldiers into their families and communities is a long, complex and resource-intensive process. Supporting Governments in their efforts to end the recruitment and use of child soldiers is a paramount and necessary first step, but we must also devote adequate resources to caring for these children once we bring them home from war. We may take a child out of an army, but unless we do more for him - help him re-enter society, enrol him in a good school or teach him a useful trade, we have not set him free.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  12. “To begin with, many different conflicts around the world engage child soldiers, and the reasons why those children become soldiers are often unique to each conflict. In Uganda, the Lord's Resistance Army would kidnap children from their villages, forcing them to kill those they love. In some cultures, being a soldier is seen as a rite of passage, and many children join, thinking that they will have the honour of supporting their tribes. In South Sudan, some children are coerced, while others go to the military because they need food and shelter and cannot find it any other way. Though children may become soldiers for a variety of reasons, the practice is singularly and universally unacceptable, and must be ended.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  13. “My commitment to the Children, Not Soldiers campaign is rooted in my own experience growing up in South Los Angeles, knowing many children whose lives would be forever marred by gang violence. When I started working with child soldiers 10 years ago and heard their stories, I recognized the face of the trauma that comes from having lived in conflict as a child. This is a unique opportunity for me to make the statement that it is unacceptable for children to become agents of violence in any form. What I want to talk about today is the work that remains to be done. Until I started working with child soldiers, I had not realized the depth of the problem nor the complexity of its resolution.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  14. “I also know that the Security Council, Special Representative Zerrougui, UNICEF and the many individuals present here today have done a lot of important work to combat the use of child soldiers. The Security Council has given us tools to better protect children affected by conflict and to end and prevent the recruitment and the use of children. The Children, Not Soldiers campaign has united the countries that are taking action to end such practices in their armies. Since the launch of the campaign, there have been several positive developments: Chad recently completed the requirements of its action plan, bringing down the number of countries involved to seven. Just a few weeks ago, Myanmar freed close to a hundred children.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  15. “What concerns me most are the conditions that so many children in South Sudan must endure. In the protection of civilians camp in Bentiu, some of the boys' and girls' hair is turning red from malnutrition. Throughout the country, hundreds of schools are empty, and some have been turned into military camps, as thousands of young people go without food and basic education. Perhaps worst of all, walking through the cities, I saw child soldiers wearing military uniforms and carrying guns. I know that, to everyone in this Chamber, the idea of children living in military camps or fighting wars is unconscionable. It is inhuman in the strictest sense of the word: it robs its victims of a phase of their lives to which every human being is entitled.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  16. “For the past two years, I have gone in and out of South Sudan, working with my foundation, and I have watched and participated as the various temperaments and conflicts have manifested themselves. As I am sure the Council is aware, the situation in South Sudan remains dire. After meeting with generals, soldiers and civilians on the ground, I fear that there is no end to the violence in sight. About 100,000 individuals have sought shelter in the overcrowded civilians camps around the country. Nine months after the conflict started, most of them still do not feel that it is safe to go back home or even know if they have a home to return to. The city of Bentiu in the north is all but deserted, with houses burned to the ground, hospitals closed, and villages nearby destroyed.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source

  17. “Mr. Whitaker: I would like to thank the Security Council for receiving me today. As a humanist and as the UNESCO Special Envoy for Peace and Reconciliation, I am honoured by the opportunity to come to speak before the Council on such an important matter, and I am especially grateful to Ambassador Power for extending this invitation to me. I just returned yesterday from South Sudan, training youth in transformative peace-building through my foundation. I was also in the country in June with Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Leila Zerrougui and Irma Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, advocating for the protection and education of children affected by the conflict and working with individuals to help push the country towards peace.”

    2014-09-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7259 (2014) · source