The New Zealand army has started a new programme teaching children about weaponry and leadership.

Pictures of smiling children holding the unloaded weapons appearing in the New Zealand media has caused Education Minister Nikki Kaye to order new guidelines be drawn up on guns in schools.

As reported by the New Zealand Herald, during the army's visit to a school near Palmerston North, students aged 9 to 13 were allowed to assemble and fire an assault rifle.

One of the students aged 11 told the newspaper that he had never held a gun before and "it felt amazing and cool" while the schoold administration said they did not think the visit would be controversial.

Sandra Olsson*

Multiple conflicts simmer across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, further impoverishing already struggling rural communities, trapping children in a web of violence.

The conflicts have destroyed communities and created thousands of child soldiers, serving directly on the front lines, or labouring as porters, cooks, and spies. Up to 40 percent of them are girls.

In 2016, Child Soldiers International interviewed 150 girls formerly associated with some of the country's multiple armed groups.

Veterans for Peace UK has released a new report exploring the effects of army employment on recruits, particularly during initial training. The report, drawing on veterans’ testimony and around 200 studies, finds that the risk of violent offending and heavy drinking rises after joining the army.

Dan joined the army in 2006, at 18, having grown up in an area of high unemployment. He was told that military discipline would keep him out of trouble. After training he deployed to Iraq, and when he came home he assaulted a warrant officer. He was sentenced to 18 months in military prison.

Conscientious objector Atalia Ben-Abba has been exempted from military service after spending 110 days in military prison for her refusal to join army. Ben-Abba's release was on grounds of unsuitability, after her request to be recognized as a conscientious objector was rejected.

In her statement following her release, Ben-Abba said “The army can call the waiver [from mandatory conscription] whatever it wants, but the fact of the matter remains that it gave me a waiver as a result of my simple refusal to participate in a system that uses violent means to oppress another people, which has imposed an occupation upon it for 50 years, and is imposing a siege, the consequences of which are yet to be seen.”

By Pat Elder

Wars start in our high schools and this is where we can end them.

This year the Army’s goal is to recruit 80,000 active duty and reserve soldiers. The Navy is trying to sign up 42,000; the Air Force is looking for 27,000, and the Marines hope to bring on 38,000. That comes to 187,000.  The Army National Guard will also attempt to lure 40,000.

On 25th May, War Resisters' International organised a webinar on conscientious objection, peace education and countering youth militarisation in South Korea. In the webinar, we had presentations from two Seoul-based peace campaigners: Hanui Choi, Coordinator and Peace Education Facilitator at PEACE MOMO, and Seungho Park, a conscientious objector and an activist from World without War. 

By Rhianna Louise*

Today, on Saturday, June 24th, Liverpool is hosting Armed Forces Day in Britain. Armed Forces Day is a relatively new occasion in the UK; it began as Veterans’ Day, in 2006, and was then renamed Armed Forces Day in 2009 in response to declining public support for the armed forces. Events take place across the UK (this year there are over 350), and local councils bid to host the national event – for which they receive a small amount of government funding and sponsorship, and also spend significant amounts of their own money.

Natalia Vasilieva, The Evening Kazan

They threatened to mess up his permanent record if the tenth grader at a village school in the Arsky region did not take military training classes. The classes are required for boys as part of OBZh — a health and safety course taught in all Russian schools. “I’m a pacifist. I think it’s just not right for me to assemble and disassemble automatic weapons. I don’t want to spend beautiful days in May playing war,” explained 17-year-old Kamil Sh. to newspaper Evening Kazan. Staff at the human rights organization “For Our Sons” note that this is the first case in Tatarstan where a student has openly refused to take part in the OBZh classes out of conviction. Up until now, if young people asked to be excused from the training, it was on grounds of poor health.

Conscientious objector Atalia Ben-Abba, 19, has been imprisoned for the fourth time for her refusal to serve in the IDF. With this final sentence, Atalia will spend 30 more days behind bars, adding to the 80 days she has already served in military prison.

Send your protest emails to the Israeli authorities here.

Atalia's declaration

In her declaration Atalia states:

My social responsibility as a stakeholder in our society is important to me. The people living here are important to me, all of the people living here, and it's my responsibility and the responsibility of all of us to act for a better life here. My refusal to be drafted doesn't come out of a renunciation of this responsibility, but out of the understanding that our present reality needs to be changed, and that my refusal is my way to change it.

Europe’s “abysmal” treatment of refugee children, who have made up about a third of those seeking asylum on the continent over the last two years, will increase the danger of their later radicalisation and drift into criminality, a damning report from the Council of Europe has said.

A system that allows the sexual and physical abuse of children in overcrowded detention centres, where they are often separated from their families, will only condemn Europe to trouble in the future the report warns.

The number of unaccompanied children who applied for asylum in the European Union reached 96,465 in 2015 and they accounted for almost a quarter of all asylum applicants under 18 years of age.