Child Soldiers Global Report 2004 - Gambia

Republic of the Gambia

Covers the period from April 2001 to March 2004.

Population: 1.4 million (0.7 million under 18)
Government armed forces: 800
Compulsory recruitment age: no conscription
Voluntary recruitment age: 18
Voting age: 18
Optional Protocol: signed 21 December 2000
Other treaties ratified (see glossary): CRC, GC AP I and II, ICC, ILO 138, ILO 182; ACRWC

There were no reports of under-18s in the armed forces.

Context

Restrictions on political activities were lifted in July 2001, and incumbent President Yahya Jammeh won presidential elections in October 2001.¹ Opposition parties boycotted legislative elections in January 2002 in protest at alleged irregularities, and the ruling party won all but three seats.²

The UN Panels of Experts on Sierra Leone and Liberia expressed concern on several occasions at exports of diamonds by Gambia, which is not a diamond producing country, and the relocation to Gambia of prominent individuals within the Liberian diamond trade. The Panels had been established by the UN Security Council to investigate links between the diamond trade, violations of an arms embargo against Liberia and the fuelling of armed conflict in the region.³ Child soldiers were used extensively by most parties to the conflicts in the region. In 2001 the UN Security Council placed a travel ban on Baba Jobe, a member of the Gambian National Assembly for the ruling party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), for his alleged involvement in the illicit diamond trade and arms trafficking from Sierra Leone.⁴ In March 2004 Baba Jobe was sentenced by a Banjul court to nine years and eight months' imprisonment for fraud and economic crimes involving non-payment of customs duties to the state by the company he headed, Youth Development Enterprises.⁵ Until March 2003 he had been the majority leader of the Gambian National Assembly.⁶

Government

National recruitment legislation

There was no conscription. The Armed Forces Act specifies that "Where a person enlisting has not attained the age of eighteen years, his period of enlistment shall commence from the date he attains the age of eighteen years" (Section 23). Gambia told the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2000 that "The legislation ... requires amendment so that any person below 18 should not be enlisted in the armed forces", but the law was not known to have been amended.⁷ In November 2001 the Committee expressed concern that there was no clear legal definition of the child and called on Gambia to establish a clear legal minimum age for enlistment in the armed forces.⁸

There were no military schools in Gambia. Military training was carried out in the Fajara barracks, including by Turkish trainers.⁹

Other developments

The Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern at the low age of criminal responsibility in Gambia (seven years) and the possibility that a child could be sentenced to death, at low levels of birth registration, and at increasing problems of child labour and sexual exploitation of children.¹⁰

1 Amnesty International Report 2002, http://web. amnesty.org/library/engindex.

2 Amnesty International Report 2003.

3 Reports of UN Panel of Experts on Liberia, UN Docs. S/2000/1195, S/2001/1015, S/2002/470, http://www.un.org/documents.

4 UN Press Release SC/8027, "Security Council Committee issues list of names of individuals subject to measures imposed by paragraph 4 of resolution 1521 (2003)", 16 March 2004, http://www.un.org/documents.

5 Confidential source, May 2004.

6 L'afrique en bref, 30 March 2004, http://www.radiofrance.fr/divers.

7 Initial report of Gambia to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. CRC/C/3/Add.61, 28 September 2000, http://www.ohchr.org.

8 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations: Gambia, UN Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.165, 6 November 2001.

9 Confidential source, May 2004.

10 UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, op. cit.