COAV – What is it?
COAV is the abbreviation for ‘Children and youth in Organised Armed Violence’: Children and youth employed or otherwise participating in Organised Armed Violence where there are elements of a command structure and power over territory, local population or resources.
Examples of groups that involve children and youth in these conditions are: drug trade factions in territorial dispute (as in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil); organized criminal gangs in general (drug and arms traffickers and kidnappers); structured and armed youth gangs ) (´maras´ and gangs in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala); armed ethnic groups; death squads and vigilante groups that execute criminals. The problem is also found in post-conflict regions where organized crime employs armed groups.
The COAV Project
The main objectives of the COAV Project are to identify cases where children and youth are involved in armed groups in countries that are not at war, produce and disseminate information on the problem, educate the international community on the problem, and share best practices and solutions.
The creation and divulsion of an international study on COAV in eleven countries and a global information network maintained by the website www.coav.org.br are the main tools for meeting the objectives.
After consulting child protection agencies throughout the world, 10 regions were selected where there is significant involvement by children in armed violence, and where better understanding the problem and working to solve it are prioritized: Brazil, Jamaica, El Salvador, Ecuador, Honduras, Philippines, Nigeria, South Africa, USA, Northern Ireland and Colombia.
Viva Rio and IANSA signed an accord with local institutions respected for their work in the area of child protection and conducted a workshop for project researchers. Data collected by the researchers during the second half of 2003 and the first half of 2004 are available in the section International Study at the COAV site and in the book “Neither War nor Peace,” available in English, Spanish and Portuguese. For more information on the book, please contact COAV.
Context
In 2002, the study “Children of the Drug Trade: A Case Study of Children in Organized Armed Violence in Rio de Janeiro” compared those minors who are part of the structure of the drug factions in Rio de Janeiro with child soldiers in countries at war or in conflict.
According to the study, almost 5 thousand armed children are involved in drug trade factional disputes over territorial control in Rio de Janeiro, in ‘work’ conditions very similar to children recruited as soldiers. Recruitment methods; the recruitment age (as of 10 years of age); the existence of a hierarchical structure with set rules and punishments that do not distinguish between children and adults; remuneration for services rendered; the provision of small arms to minors, and the question of survival (‘kill or be killed’) are some of the similarities identified.
The number of child deaths in Rio de Janeiro is greater than in some countries in conflict. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict 467 children were killed between 1987 and 2001, while the number of children who died violent deaths in Rio de Janeiro in the same period was 3,937.
Despite the similarities, minors involved in the drug trade in Rio de Janeiro cannot be classified as ‘child soldiers,’ as the city is not officially at war. To identify children as such would be a mistake, since it could lead to the denial of civil rights to the children and the legitimization of the use of force against them by the state.
On the other hand, definitions such as “juvenile delinquent,” “criminal” and “gang member” do not correspond to reality and lead to mistakes when searching for solutions to the problem. For a better understanding and further study of the phenomena, the Viva Rio study proposes the term Children in Organized Armed Violence (COAV).
History
The NGO Viva Rio and the Instituto de Estudos da Religião (ISER) presented the results form the study ‘Children of the Drug Trade’ in September of 2002 in the Seminar on Children Affected by Organized Armed Violence in Rio de Janeiro.
International specialists in child protection and armed violence recognized COAV as a global problem and identified the need for further information on COAV so that it can be better addressed in international forums.
The research parameters are based on the working definition approved by international experts, in which children in organised armed violence are: Children and youth employed or otherwise participating in Organised Armed Violence where there are elements of a command structure and power over territory, local population or resources.
