International Conference on War-Affected Childern

Small arms and light weapons: handguns, grenades, rocket propelled grenades, assault rifles, landmines, personal weapons, and weapons that can be carried by one or two persons, or small animals.

What is working?

· Does Canada currently sell small arms to countries in conflict or countries with potential conflict situations?

Arms embargoes in conflict countries by the UN

What isn't working?

· There are still small arms being sold around the world, and it doesn't matter to arms dealers which country they are selling to

· Tracking mechanisms to track small arms sales, especially amongst the arms producers are not working as well as registry

· Disarmament processes do not work because more arms come into the country (arms are imported then sold to the disarmament teams)

Moralizing about small arms is not working

Recommendations

· Arms being produced should be registered and tracked in order to ensure they are going to their proper destinations

· Arms recovered via disarmament processes should be destroyed (i.e. Ireland, Liberia)

· Ban arms sales to governments who do not operate within human rights standards

· Small arms should be designed to be more difficult to use so as to make it more difficult for children to use them. (i.e. more safety devices)

· Arms producers should be limited in the quantity of arms they can produce per annum

· Limitations should be placed on governments to limit the number of small arms they can stockpile

· UN Experts should be sent to different governments to set up and monitor programs for disarmament and small arms control

· Small arms trade should be made non-profitable so as to discourage promiscuous arms sales

· We should stop talking out of both sides of our mouths; we cannot support conflict by selling arms to them and support peace at the same time. (stop being hypocritical)

· Small arms should be used to protect life and property and not for exploitation and human rights violations

· Third party organizations to monitor/initiate/facilitate small arms trade

· There should be straight and clear legislation in regards to the small arms trade

· Small arms should remain out of civilian hands, and remain within the hands of legitimate state organizations for security purposes

· These recommendations should not just be for talking, but for action

· Remain impartial to conflict situations in order to achieve justice and peace for resolving the conflict

Small arms should be banned completely, a world without guns should be our dream

What youth can do?

· Organize action against small arms (violence, productions, sales, etc)

· Youth should take action (letters, boycotts, etc) against companies that produce/promote weapons and weapon sales to war affected countries

Youth should not join armed groups but should rather become conscientious objectors in both state armies as well as rebel groups. Refuse to become soldiers.

Stop violence, racism and teach love and be an example to adults if they cannot be positive examples to us.

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