Human and child trafficking in DRC

DR Congo government forces and rebels loyal to dissident Gen Laurent Nkunda are heavily recruiting and using children traficked from Rwanda and Uganda to fight their wars, the latest UN report on the issue has indicated. The movement of armed groups across borders to recruit children from refugee camps continues to be alarming ... Since January 2007, the report says, there has been a surge in the recruitment and use of Congolese and Rwandan children in North Kivu from refugee camps and communities in Rwanda by forces loyal to Laurent Nkunda. Ugandan children living in the DR Congo-Uganda border areas have also been targeted. As for how the DRC army (FARDC) comes into the equation is in a way that in November 2006, government and Gen. Nkunda agreed to mix their forces in a process known as 'mixage'. This would later create mixed brigades. This process has since fallen apart. The mixage, according to the report resulted in the de facto presence of many children among the ranks of the new FARDC mixed brigades and their use for active combat against the Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda (FDLR). Reports also indicate that increased recruitment activities were carried out in North Kivu, as well as in Rwanda and Uganda, prior to and throughout the mixage process ... The transportation of vulnerable children by both the Government and rebel groups across borders during armed conflict constitutes one of the worst forms of child trafficking, the report by the UN Secretary General's envoy on children in armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy ... A total of 4,182 children, including 629 girls, were separated from armed forces and groups in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo last year. In Ituri - North eastern DRC, 2,472 children, including 564 girls, were separated from MRC, FRPI and FNI militia forces and 10 boys were separated from Mai-Mai forces in the remote area of Opienga in Oriental Province. In North Kivu, 1,374 children, including 52 girls, were separated primarily from mixed brigades loyal to Laurent Nkunda and government forces and Mai-Mai militia forces ... some 250,000 children globally are being recruited to fight in armed conflicts ...