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Geopolitics
Netherlands

Congolese Warlord Sentenced To 14 Years For Using Child Soldiers

GeopoliticsSourcesWORLDCRUNCHNetherlandsCountries

BBC NEWS (UK), JEUNE AFRIQUE (France)

Worldcrunch

THE HAGUE - Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years in jail on Tuesday by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague for recruting and using child soldiers, some younger than 15, from 2002 to 2003. The sentence is the first to be handed out by the ICC since it started working a decade ago.

Fifty-one year-old Lubanga was convicted of war crimes in March for his role in the civil war in Ituri, a northeastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where ethnic conflict has killed an estimated 60,000 people since 1999. The BBC reports that Lubanga showed no emotion as he was sentenced.

Prosecution had requested a harsher sentence of 30 years in prison. ICC Judge Adrian Fulford praised the former militia leader for his cooperation and conduct during the trial, turning instead to criticize former prosecutor Luis Moreno Occampo, Jeune Afrique reports. Fulford said Occampo did not give evidence to support erroneous claims and allowed his staff to mislead the press, according to the BBC.

Lubanga was the leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots, an ethnic Hema milita, and of its military wing. The sentence was seen by human rights activists as a victory for international justice.

But Lubanga was arrested in Kinshasa in March 2005, and the years of prison he has served up until now will be deducted from his sentence, prompting some Twitter users to criticize the decision.

Others referenced the criticism that the ICC focuses too much on crimes in Africa and not in the rest of the world.

Lubanga, who had pleaded not guilty, has 30 days to appeal the decision. Unrest continues in the DRC as rebel forces led by General Bosco Ntaganda - an ally of Lubanga who is also wanted for war crimes by the ICC - advance towards the country's main eastern city of Goma.

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Society
Parenting

What's Spoiling The Kids: The Big Tech v. Bad Parenting Debate

Without an extended family network, modern parents have sought to raise happy kids in a "hostile" world. It's a tall order, when youngsters absorb the fears (and devices) around them like a sponge.

Image of a kid wearing a blue striped sweater, using an ipad.

Children exposed to technology at a very young age are prominent today.

Kelly Sikkema
SocietyEL ESPECTADORSourcesfeatured-postColombiaCountries
Julián de Zubiría Samper

-Analysis-

BOGOTÁ — A 2021 report from the United States (the Youth Risk Behavior Survey) found that 42% of the country's high-school students persistently felt sad and 22% had thought about suicide. In other words, almost half of the country's young people are living in despair and a fifth of them have thought about killing themselves.

Such chilling figures are unprecedented in history. Many have suggested that this might be the result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but sadly, we can see depression has deeper causes, and the pandemic merely illustrated its complexity.

I have written before on possible links between severe depression and the time young people spend on social media. But this is just one aspect of the problem. Today, young people suffer frequent and intense emotional crises, and not just for all the hours spent staring at a screen. Another, possibly more important cause may lie in changes to the family composition and authority patterns at home.

Firstly: Families today have fewer members, who communicate less among themselves.

Young people marry at a later age, have fewer children and many opt for personal projects and pets instead of having children. Families are more diverse and flexible. In many countries, the number of children per woman is close to or less than one (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong among others).

In Colombia, women have on average 1.9 children, compared to 7.6 in 1970. Worldwide, women aged 15 to 49 years have on average 2.4 children, or half the average figure for 1970. The changes are much more pronounced in cities and among middle and upper-income groups.

Of further concern today is the decline in communication time at home, notably between parents and children. This is difficult to quantify, but reasons may include fewer household members, pervasive use of screens, mothers going to work, microwave ovens that have eliminated family cooking and meals and, thanks to new technologies, an increase in time spent on work, even at home. Our society is addicted to work and devotes little time to minors.

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