A four-day workshop aimed at eliminating the use of child soldiers in conflict areas has opened in Accra with the expectation that participants would unearth tools to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers. The programme with about 55 experts and practitioners on child soldiers drawn from around the world, especially conflict areas, is part of a three-phase programme to fight the use of child soldiers. Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire explained that the first phase of the programme was implemented last year when the experts met to analyze the use of children in conflicts. He said the workshop in Accra was the second phase where participants would create an artificial country with all the problems of child soldiers and act the different roles with the objective of finding a solution to the use of child soldiers in conflict areas. Mr. Dallaire said the third and final phase would be a visit to a conflict area to implement the solution that had come up in the second phase of the programme. He said it was likely they would select an African country, probably the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where they would work together with the United Nations Office in the country and other stakeholders to help eliminate the use of child soldiers in that country. “The problem of child soldiers needs a multi-discipline solution,” Mr. Dallaire noted. He said the workshop was neither an academic exercise nor a technical one but one that was meant to find a lasting solution to the problem. Mr. John Williamson, Director for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Displaced Children and Orphans’ Fund, said the problem of using children in conflict was a global one and urged stakeholders to collaborate with countries that were in conflict to help solve the problem. Source: GNA