Canadian Red Cross Youth TAP (Training in Action Program)_______________________________________________________________________________________ EVEN WARS HAVE LIMITS: CHILDREN IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

SLIDE SHOW SCRIPT (Revised 09/06/05)

Slide 1 Boy with others behind These children got in the way of somebody else’s war ...

Slide 2 Girl in front of bullet- SILENCEriddled wall

Slide 3 Kids in destroyed street SILENCE

Slide 4 Boy with face injury War does not spare children like these... bombs fall from the sky, bullets rip through homes, and provisions are cut off. Their young lives are changed forever...

Slide 5 Kids in crowd Since 1990, millions of children under the age of 18 have been caught up in the destructiveness of war.

Slide 6 kids on tank Today, in around 50 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, children are suffering in the midst of conflict and its aftermath.

More than 2 million children were killed in the 1990s as a result of armed conflict.

Slide 7 Children and helicopter Unlike most of us in Canada, these children know the danger of battle...

Slide 8 Girl behind wire ...They know the loneliness of imprisonment or abandonment...

Slide 9 Hands from jail cell ...They know the agony of torture and mistreatment...

Slide 10 Crying infant ...and they know the absolute misery of starvation.

Canadian Red Cross Youth TAP (Training in Action Program)_______________________________________________________________________________________ EVEN WARS HAVE LIMITS: CHILDREN IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

Slide 11 Child on ground withsoldier in background Conflict is affecting civilians more than ever

before. Children are especially vulnerable …

Slide 12 Woman holding child … when they are deprived of food, clean water, shelter, sanitation and basic healthcare.

During war, malnutrition, measles, diarrhea and lung infections can kill 50 - 95% of children under five years of age.

Slide 13 Legs of children Since 1996, 4 million people have died as a result of the war in Congo—more than thepopulation of BC

Slide 14 Girl with gun There is a growing tendency of warringparties to use children as soldiers. Currently, there are 300,000 active child soldiers fighting around the world.

Slide 15 Boys assaulting man Usually children are recruited unwillingly...but sometimes it’s of their own choosing.

Deprived of a family, or denied work and education that would help prepare them for adulthood, these child recruits often join an armed group just to survive.

Slide 16 Boy with 2 soldiers Children as young as eight years old can easily carry and be taught to fire an AK-47. They are often made to do the most dangerous and deadly work.

Small arms or light weapons take a horrific toll on civilians.

In the four minutes or so since this slide showbegan, four people have been killed by gun

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Canadian Red Cross Youth TAP (Training in Action Program)_______________________________________________________________________________________ EVEN WARS HAVE LIMITS: CHILDREN IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

violence—mostly during war and mostly by light automatic weapons or hand guns.

Slide 17 Boy with shells on head Child soldiers end up becoming both the victims and the victimizers—and those who survive often carry the scars of psychological trauma into adulthood.

Also, by the time they reach adulthood, violence has often become established as a routine way of life that is difficult to escape—often resulting in a life of crime or increased family violence.

Slide 18 Woman with bodies During war, children of the ‘other side’ are often considered the enemy and deliberately targeted.

Slide 19 Woman in agony in crowd All too often children are first-hand witnesses of terrible acts committed against their parents, family members or neighbours.

Slide 20 Girl leaning on grain sack The psychological wounds, trauma and stress can stay with these survivors for a long time.

Women, and even young girls, are especially vulnerable, frequently being raped or taken into sexual slavery.

Slide 21 Woman on ground It is often very difficult for victims of sexual crimes to regain a place in society after the

war.

Slide 22 Refugees sitting outside Children are uprooted from their homes,families, and communities -- close to

20 million during the 1990s became homeless within their own country…

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Canadian Red Cross Youth TAP (Training in Action Program)_______________________________________________________________________________________ EVEN WARS HAVE LIMITS: CHILDREN IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

Slide 23 People in room …or became refugees forced to flee to another country… Children account for well over half those displaced by war.

Cut off from a familiar environment, they lack any certainty as to their future... or that of their loved ones.

Slide 24 Mother hugging children Many children are orphaned, or they remain separated from their families for great lengths of time—months, even years.

Slide 25 Grandmother and child Often children must be taken in by relatives or community members, who themselves may be undergoing great hardship.

Slide 26 Infant on ground. The very future of war-affected children is put into question...

Slide 27 Boy gathering wood Not only have they been robbed of their childhood, but they are denied the education and training that will enable them to succeed in life.

Slide 28 Two boys with prosthetics For many children, the end of conflict—PEACE—can be almost as deadly as war...

...with leftover landmines and explosives laying in the very midst of their communities, over 5 million children have become permanently disabled in a decade.

Slide 29 Mine field For too long, the world has said that the impact of war on children is regrettable but inevitable. It is not.

Slide 30 Children in streets Children worldwide are caught up in conflict because of conscious, deliberate decisions made by adults.

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Canadian Red Cross Youth TAP (Training in Action Program)_______________________________________________________________________________________ EVEN WARS HAVE LIMITS: CHILDREN IN THE MIDST OF CONFLICT

Slide 31 Close-up of girl Today, children everywhere wait for, and deserve, a safer world in which to live...

...a world that takes seriously its obligation to protect them…

…to restrict the flow of deadly weapons to those who violate human rights

…and to provide assistance in reconstructing their young lives.

We need to do more...

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