Landmines, cluster munitions, small arms and light weapons: A lesser-known aspect of UNICEF’s work : Paula Claycomb

2006 Paula in PPE at
Mined Area near Kadugli

By Paula Claycomb

In addition to the well-known programme sectors, UNICEF has also been a key player in a less familiar area: Landmines, cluster munitions and small arms and light weapons. Most of UNICEF’s involvement in what the UN calls the disarmament sector began and has endured throughout the final third of its 75-year history. I am honoured to have played a short role in this important work, serving as Chief of the Landmines and Small Arms Unit from 2005 through 2008.

UNICEF’s engagement with landmines goes back to 1992 in El Salvador. Then Executive Director James P. Grant helped negotiate cooperation among several warring parties and the UN Peacekeeping Mission to undertake mine awareness amongst children. (The term “Mine Risk Education” came later.) Two years later, in a statement to the UN Human Rights Commission (replaced by the Human Rights Council in 2006), Mr. Grant said, “I would like to … urge the international community to … adopt a total ban on the production, use, stockpiling, sale and export of anti-personnel landmines.”

2003 Mine Risk Education Session Led by Adolescents

Shortly thereafter, UNICEF joined with the newly founded International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), which had been started by six NGOs and later joined by many more. At some point – perhaps one of our readers will know when and under whose management – Dr. Tehnaz Dastoor was charged with mine action in UNICEF. She was Global Coordinator for Landmines and wrote Anti-personnel Landmines: Policies, Strategies and Programmes for the Office for Emergency Programmes in 1998.

With ICBL, the UN Mine Action Service, the ICRC, several UNICEF National Committees and the support of many governments, UNICEF welcomed the landmark Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Treaty in 1997. It entered into force in March 1999. UNICEF was well and truly on its way to taking the lead in the UN system in mine risk education, aimed at reducing the incidence of mine explosions, and victim (or survivor) assistance.

At some point between 1999 and 2001, Polly Brennan was recruited to head a small team dedicated to supporting County Offices affected by landmines to undertake mine risk education and to providing victim assistance to children and their families, including the provision of prosthetics. Polly was injured by the bomb blast in Baghdad in August 2003 that killed Sergio Vieira de Mello the UNSG’s Special Representative in Iraq and Chris Klein-Beekman, the UNICEF staff member responsible for mine action in Iraq. Polly was followed by an Officer-in-Charge team of Reuben McCarthy and Gian Luca Buono, followed by Dermot Carty.

By the time I arrived in NYHQs in early 2005, from 2-1/2 years in Sudan amidst the Darfur genocide and the division of the country into Sudan and South Sudan, the Landmines and Small Arms Team (LASAT) had been established, with Reuben, Gian Luca, Julien Temple and Julie Myers. We later added Miki Fukuhara and Sharif Baaser. We worked hard to ensure funding for both the explosive weapons side and the small arms and light weapons side of our expanded mandate.

2018 - child examines his prosthetic following a landmine explosion

Why SALW? Because the injuries, death and psychological trauma due to these weapons was ever-present in conflict situations and in a growing number of countries not officially designed as being in a war or conflict situation. The LASAT team endured more jokes about “small arms” than was warranted. These serious weapons mean death and injury and include pistols, rifles, submachine guns, light machine guns, assault rifles and weapons designed for use by two or more persons, such as rocket-propelled grenades. Several UNICEF COs, mainly in Central and South America but also in every other region, wished to engage in reducing child and adolescent membership in gangs or armed groups and to providing them with education and recreation.

2006 Kadugli - De-miner at work 

Simultaneously, eliminating the use of cluster munitions – nasty weapons that are usually air-dropped (but can be ground-launched) and that release small, explosive submunitions – was beginning to be taken up by the NGO community. These bomblets have a huge range on the ground and are designed to destroy vehicles and, not surprisingly, people, including children.

UNICEF senior management somewhat reluctantly agreed to our participation in international negotiations for a cluster munitions treaty and a small arms treaty. I think UNICEF was being pulled in so many directions that indiscriminate weapons and SALW were not top-of-mind priorities for many. However, were it not for UNICEF’s presence in the preparatory meetings for a cluster munitions convention and a small arms treaty, children and adolescents would have been excluded from the discussions and texts. The Convention on Cluster Munitions was signed in 2008 and entered into force in August 2010. The Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly in April 2013 and entered into force in December 2014. All three of these weapons-related instruments -- the MBT, CCM and ATT -- benefitted from UNICEF’s participation and support.

It will probably come as no surprise that the United States has not ratified any of these three treaties, although in 2014, the US said it would abide by the terms of the Mine Ban Treaty except for landmines used on the Korean Peninsula.

Currently, if I understand correctly, Hugues Laurenge is the sole UNICEF staff member dedicated to Mine Action/ Explosive Weapons. SALW seem to have disappeared from the priority list. He has worked in this field since 1999 and is currently the moderator of the International Mine Risk Education Working Group and co-chairs the global Explosive Ordnance Risk Education Advisory Group established in May 2019. It is a heavy burden for one individual, capable though he is, especially given the unstable global political situation, the ongoing 45+ wars or armed conflicts and the increased use of armed drones (which are currently the subject of another treaty discussion). I hope that UNICEF will strengthen its involvement in explosive and indiscriminate weapons and in small arms and light weapons.

Kadugli - Paula with De-mining specialists

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