A technical committee comprising of six people including South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF), Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Commission (DDR), and line ministries was formed on Thursday in South Sudan’s Eastern Equatoria State to establish an early warning mechanism for the protection of children.
This came during the closure of a three-day workshop organized by the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in collaboration with the national DDR Commission to orient the organized forces and the line ministries on the implementation of the comprehensive action plan to protect children affected by conflict
The formation of the Eastern Equatoria State technical committee came after the creation of the same in the other states to ensure children in the military are demobilized and reintegrated with their families.
Oringa John Baptist who works for the state DDR commission and was elected the chairperson of the technical committee said his group will work tirelessly to implement the action plan to remove child soldiers from South Sudan.
“To run the implementation of the Child Act, which was signed in Juba by all the warring parties the SSPDF, IO, and the SSOA, is the priority of this committee. You know this committee was formed at the national level and it is formed today in the state here and the other 9 states,” Oringa said
“The task of this committee is to see that we implement the action plan, follow it because what we are told is that South Sudan is still in the blacklist of the secretary-general of the UN so it has to be deleted but to delete that name we have to work hard to remove all the child soldiers from our forces in South Sudan when it now clean then this task force will end their work meaning it is now over,” he added
Oringa urged the military to allow access to the barracks for scrutiny of child soldiers.
Kornellio Nad, the officer in charge of the human rights division at UNMISS’ Torit field office, said his organization will continue providing technical and logistical support for the committee to achieve its goals.
“We would like to congratulate all duty bearers and stakeholders who worked over these past three days to ensure that an agreement was reached on the establishment of the technical level working group and also on the establishment of draft work plan to implement the action plan agreed by the different actors on halting and preventing the 6 grave violation against children in the context of armed conflicts,” Nad said.
“The commitment to supporting our partners in government or among the non-state actors remains firm as we try to prevent and halt all violations against children. That is very important and as UNMISS we are going to follow this process as supporters of this initiative and we will continue to be very supportive from the standpoint of providing the technical assistance and also providing the needed logistical support,” Nad added.
The director-general of operations at the national DDR commission, Major General David Jal Nyang, urged the committee to exercise their duty to benefit South Sudan and said it is the role of the committee to ensure South Sudan is removed from the blacklist of UN for recruiting child soldiers.
He appealed to the state government to provide all necessary support to the technical committee for the successful implementation of the plan.
“As the committee, you are now given a weapon to use. You are trained and when you do your work you will know you are given a green light to go and exercise your responsibilities,” Gen. Nyang said. “You are doing it for the benefit of South Sudan and the result of the activities that you will do will make South Sudan to be cleared from the blacklist because for several years we have been among the countries that are violating the rights of the children.
The secretary-general of the now-defunct Torit state, Emmanuel Ochiti Ottafiano, expressed government commitment to support the committee in performing their duties.
“Today I am pleased because EES has joined the rest of the states in the country in having a technical committee. I think that is an achievement by itself so we need to go together. As the government, we shall give all our support to make it successful so that they can perform their duties because what I can see in the papers here is that they have a lot of mandates that they want to do,” Ochiti said.