First of all, Leila, who are you and what you do in your life?
Thank you very much for this opportunity, I’m Leila Castillo and I currently work with the Italian Red Cross in the Humanitarian Diplomacy Office, and previously I was working as a delegate of the International Red Cross.
In the committees the delegates will discuss the issue of children soldiers, why is this phenomenon happening and are there any solutions?
In my experience I worked in several contexts, in difficult contexts, with many kids forced to recruit themselves because they don’t have other choices.
Unfortunately it is a phenomenon still present in many countries with conflicts, and a solution would be a dialogue, try to talk with the different armed groups, tell them that recruiting a young man, a young adult, is a war crime. But this is easier to say than to do, it takes a lot of passion and patience, it is not easy to achieve. We should also concentrate our efforts on the communities, not only on the kids themselves but also on the families because what I have noticed is that unfortunately, because they don’t have access to education or to social and economic opportunities, the children voluntary choose to enlist themselves in these armies.
Why do people choose to move, to run humanitarian corridors?
I want to say that there are lots of reasons to move and people have always moved. The reasons are very different, the choice to move from one country to another is usually voluntary, but nowadays people are forced to move and leave everything behind, sometimes even the family, because of the economy or of persecutions. As a volunteer of the Red Cross I believe that we should help these people, but also that authorities should find secure ways to assist these moves, or increase security in their own country to reduce the need to leave, especially in Europe, because rather than move from their home country, people decide to cross the Mediterranean sea, and it’s very dangerous. We all recognize that we have to find solutions.
Nowadays in the war fields people try to defeat the enemy by destroying health care structures, is that the way to convince an army and a population to leave the country where they live?
It’s definitely not a solution! It’s something prohibited by law, but unfortunately we recognize that it’s something that people still do, and sanitary services are actually targeted for their work. What we should do is just improve security to continue to help people in places where there are wars and ensure there are laws that protect them, and try to explain that it is not a solution and not legal to attack sanitary care, it’s something that is not acceptable today and never has been. The main difference is that unfortunately the targeting of medical structures and medical personnel is now increasing and many people who are fulfilling their duty, doing a service, are actually targeted and lose their lives.
INTERVIEW WITH LEILA CASTILLO
photo by Anna Floreancig
Gaia Riabiz