Obama Won’t Enforce the Child Soldier Prevention Act

I may be a fan of Obama’s performance on Comedy Central, but I’m no fan of this:

In 2009, the government of Chad conscripted refugee children for unlawful use as guards and combatants in its desert battles against rebel forces; the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo forced children to carry ammunition and supplies through the jungle, and some died under their weight; hundreds of boys and girls were forced into the army of southern Sudan, despite a commitment to release them; and in Yemen, children as young as 14 make up perhaps half the ranks of both the government’s forces and the rebels opposing them.

Despite those findings, in an annual State Department report on human trafficking, the Obama administration is allowing American military aid to continue to the four countries, issuing a waiver this week of a 2008 law, the Child Soldiers Prevention Act.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday, President Obama said he had determined that the waiver was in “the national interest.”

By this, the Administration apparently means that continuing to train these militaries in counter-terrorism work takes precedence over human rights concerns (I’m shocked); but they do also make a human-security-related argument: that these countries are likelier to actually end child soldiering with help from the US rather than by having aid withdrawn entirely. Not sure how to assess that one. Josh Rogin has more detail.

There may be another element at play here: enforcing the law on other countries could make the US look hypocritical for allowing military recruiters into middle schools and blasting military recruitment ads in movie theaters during PG films. While recruiting children isn’t the same as actually deploying them, the child soldiers treaty actually bans both.