CHILDREN AND THE ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES: DEADLY LEGACY

CHILDREN AND THE ANTI-PERSONNEL MINES: DEADLY LEGACY
Mines as well as other unexploded remnants of war (ERW) kill, injure and make orphaned children. In many countries affected by this phenomenon, children account for one third of all victims. According to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, about 6000 people have been killed or maimed by these same mines in 2006, the lowest number of incidents recorded in 1997 after the entry into force of the Treaty for the Prohibition of mines.
Children are the main victims of landmines and unexploded ordnance, including cluster bombs, often colorful, shiny and attractive then their eyes because they are considered as potential toys.
Children for their small corpuratura are more likely to die as a result of mine explosions than adults. About 85% of children mine victims die before reaching the hospital.
The children, in particular those refugees and displaced persons are those most at risk and the main targets of anti-personnel mines because unaware of the dangers of playing or crossing dangerous areas.
The injuries caused by landmines include loss of limbs, sight or hearing resulting in permanent disability.
Without proper medical treatment, children injured by landmines are often removed from the schools. They then limited future prospects in the field of education and training and are often considered a burden for their own families.
These landmines ruin the lives of these children when the parents themselves or those who care for them are also injured and killed. In the case where their mothers are killed or maimed are less likely to receive adequate nutrition, essre protected from a possible exploitation and abuse. When fathers are the victims of landmines, children are often forced to abbondonare the school and start working to supplement the family income.
The cost of providing the long-term care for children who are victims of landmines can be prohibitive. Rehabilitation clinics are often too expensive or even difficult to reach.
Landmines have not yet been identified impede the construction of houses, roads, schools, health facilities and other essential services. Also prevent access to agricultural land and irrigation.
Landmines and unexploded remnants of war clearly violate most of the articles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: the right of a child to life, to a safe environment in which to play, the right to health, drinking water, sanitary conditions in and adequate education.
The mines are mines: the International Campaign
In December 1997, the Nobel Prize for peace 'was awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and its spokesperson Jodie Williams. And 'treaty is an important recognition to the set of associations, groups and individuals who for some years trying to raise public awareness on the issue of landmines, weight loss, social and human as they represented, and on the need' of a collective effort to solve this terrible problem.
One of the most important results achieved by the International Campaign was the pressure of a large number of countries to induce them to sign an international treaty banning landmines. These efforts were crowned with success at the end of the '97 conference in Ottawa has been reached an agreement for a total ban of these weapons. The treaty has so far obtained the signature of a large number of participating countries and among them Italy (but not yet to major countries like the U.S. and China).
These results, although significant, should not make us lose sight of the scale of the problem that the international community still has in front of him. In fact, even if these weapons were finally banned all over the planet (and we are still far from achieving this goal), it is still an open question of the elimination of landmines already scattered in a large number of countries.

The Ottawa Convention
Among the countries that have not signed the Ottawa Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and trade of antipersonnel mines and on their destruction is worth remembering: Cuba, United States, Russia, Turkey, Egypt , Israel, Morocco, Eritrea, Somalia, Nigeria, China and India.
The treaty was approved in 1997 in Ottawa today between quarters was signed by the countries of the world, 138, and 101 ratifications are. Producing states have gone from 54 to 16. Territories were de-mined 168 million square meters.
According to the 2000 report, there are more than 250 million mines in the arsenals of the armed forces of 105 countries, in particular China [110 million] and Russia [60/70 milioni]. Among the signatories were Italy maintains the largest number of mines stored in warehouses of the armed forces [4.8 million].
In 1999 have been destroyed about 22 million landmines in 50 countries. Only seventeen of these states have completely eliminated the reserves of the mines.
Among the 138 signatory countries, only 48 states have taken steps to publish a report on the status of implementation of the Convention even though she was all obliged.
The Sub-Saharan Africa is the region with the highest number of mines still in use, particularly in Angola, Burundi, Sudan, Ethiopia, Congo, ex-Zaire, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe. But are Afghanistan, Cambodia and Myanmar the countries with the highest number of victims. The use of more massive in the past year and a half there has been in Chechnya and Kosovo.
The nations of the world are still contaminated 88.

Still an open problem
The total amount of mines already spread is obviously very difficult to assess; However, you can take as a starting point the estimate provided by the United Nations that, as coarse, however, indicates the order of magnitude of the problem. This estimate indicates about 100 million in 62 countries, the number of landmines scattered so far, while the number of those currently being introduced every year seems to lie between 500,000 and one million. Over the past 10-20 years the problem has assumed particularly dramatic for the large number of civil wars and ethnic conflicts in which these weapons have been used indiscriminately and outside of the traditional rules of use of the armed forces, which include the drafting and preservation of maps of the minefields, which are useful for the subsequent disinfection. We can mention here as an example, Angola, Mozambique, Cambodia, Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, and so on.
The production of anti-personnel mines is estimated 5-10 million per year, spread over a hundred manufacturers in 55 countries. The number of mines destroyed each year in demining operations, is placed instead, between 100,000 and 200,000. At this rate, it would take hundreds of years to completely eliminate these weapons from the countries in which they are present.
Another important point to note is that while the demining techniques for military purposes can be considered effective and readily available, those for humanitarian purposes are much less so.
In fact demining military, which has as its sole purpose the opening of corridors practicable in the middle of minefields, it is not acceptable to the standards required by humanitarian operations. The latter, however, require a land reclamation virtually 100%, since the main problem is the return of a humanitarian nature of vast territories activity and economic feasibility, commercial and human in general.
The impact of landmines on the lives of local people is really devastating because their presence makes it impractical to agriculture and mobility 'vast territories with huge economic and psychological effects. Not to mention the weight that this imposes on the health and social system of the most affected countries, whose financial condition, and as' easy to imagine, are often dramatic. For example, the cost of artificial limbs necessary for a person crippled by a mine is now estimated around $ 3,000. Taking into account the large number of these disabled (eg in Cambodia, on whose territory it is estimated that there are between 4:07 million mines, one in 236 'was crippled by a mine), you can have a' idea of ​​the size of the problem.
Technological advances have, however, much worse: the current generation of mine is constructed of plastic materials that make them extremely difficult to detect by the most popular. Not to mention the mines, already available, which contain sophisticated devices that make them too dangerous to try and remove, thus constituting a serious problem for the teams of deminers professionals. The current detection systems, however, have an efficiency that is situated between 60 and 90% for mines that contain a minimum of metal: so far from the levels required by a reclamation for humanitarian purposes. All this makes it difficult to de-mining, dangerous and very expensive.
The methods currently used for the detection of landmines stored below the earth are essentially two. The first is based on smell of dogs or pigs trained to recognize unexploded mines: the second, only usable for metal mines, exploits the magnetic field variations generated by the presence of metallic masses in the range of the detector.
Other sensors are, however, 'the study.
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The numbers of barbarous
Unexploded landmines
  100,000,000
maimed or killed each year
15,000
average cost of a mine (ITL)
  15,000
average cost to turn it off (ITL)
  10,000,000
mines produced every year
  10,000,000
countries contaminated by mines
62


The countries most affected are:
Cambodia, Afghanistan, Angola, Mozambique, former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Somalia, El Salvador, Kurdistan, Kuwait.

To completely de-mine Afghanistan at current rate it would take about 4,300 years.
A survey (source: International Red Cross) made on the wounded in Afghanistan landmine clarifies that the majority of mine victims are civilians. Only 13% of the injured was made by the military. Landmine victims were hit by 8% during the game, 20% at work in the fields, to 15% when you travel, to 4% during mine clearance, 38% in non-military activities ; 2% of respondents did not respond.
Based on the data it appears that the victims of war today are:
7% of the fighters 34% children 26% seniors 16% women 17% men (non-combatants)
Today it is the civilians to pay for the follies of the warlords. In World War I, at the beginning of the century, civilians represented 15% of the victims. As can be noted, therefore, the situation today is reversed compared to the beginning of the century and to this war "modern" has become much more inhumane and abhorrent because at the expense of the innocent.