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Child soldiers regain lost years at Transit Centre
By Feizal Samath
KILINOCHCHI - When they reluctantly walked into the centre in October, the children dressed in military t’shirts were extremely boisterous. They scowled and shouted back at the adults - an indication of being in a tense, military environment.

Three months later however, they move out of the centre as normal kids - cheeky, laughing, playing and doing things that children do. "It's going well," says Penny Brune, head of the UNICEF office in Kilinochchi while taking us around the transit home for children. "Initially there were some difficulties because this is the first transit centre here and quite different from those in African countries. But we are happy with the progress."

The 10 children - nine of them girls - gather around a table as their teachers or guides - walk outside the classroom to greet us. "No pictures, and no interviews with the children, please," says Penny but agrees to a back-view picture of the kids - trying to regain lost time as children .

The visit is much too short to form an objective assessment of the joint effort by UNICEF and the LTTE in reintegrating children working in the rebel organization into the mainstream. We spent about 15 minutes at the centre, being there at about 4 p.m. - constantly aware that we needed an hour to drive to the checkpoint to leave this LTTE-controlled town for Jaffna and beat the 5 p.m. deadline before the barrier closes. However, from the short time spent there we realized there are many plus points in this bold project launched amidst adverse publicity last October. The centre is jointly managed by UNICEF and the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), a relief group widely considered to be part of the rebel apparatus.

The first batch of 49 children aged between 15 to 17 years left the centre last month while a new set of 10 children joined in December and January. Preparations were underway on that Tuesday, January 27, to welcome more children, with volunteers putting up mosquito nets and arranging bunk beds. The cluster of trees and a clean compound with a small football field at the back provide a tranquil setting for a project of this kind. By Friday, another 10 were sent by the LTTE to the centre where the children are kept for three months and gently guided back into society.

The LTTE denies accusations that it recruits children for military purposes and says that children "under their care" are volunteers handling non-combatant work. UNICEF officials and counsellors don't ask the young inmates at the centre what they have been doing in the LTTE. "We don't know. We don't ask, anyway. If a child wants to talk about it to a social worker or if they need any kind of counselling, then they are free to talk about it," said Penny, who has worked for more than three years in the Wanni .

The parents of the children are allowed to visit them and also stay overnight at the centre using the parent-child bond to speed up the rehabilitation process. Asked whether the rebels were annoyed at a UNICEF report two weeks back of concern over continued recruitment of children by the LTTE, Penny -who has constant contacts with the group - said the LTTE was aware of the report even before it was released.

"The LTTE has accepted the contents in the report. We have spoken to them about it and they have said they would like to put more children in the transit centre. They accepted the report as it was. It was very factual (information)," she said. In a January 22 statement, UNICEF said it had reports of at least 1,301 children recruited by the LTTE.

With the transit home able to accommodate at least 120 children, UNICEF officials have been pleading for more children to be released. "We continue to advocate for more to be released," Penny said. A TRO representative at the centre says the LTTE is pleased with the progress of the home and has agreed to release more children.

Procedures at the centre have also been streamlined compared to what they were at the beginning. The LTTE has been asked to provide civilian clothes for the children when they are released rather than the military outfit they wear. The children are also given fresh t'shirts, tracksuits, comb, towel, soap, etc by UNICEF when they come in. Most of the children have spent one to two years with the LTTE.

Many in the first batch of children were reunited with their families. Eight of them were placed in suitable childcare facilities -in some cases because the parents could not be found and in others for fear of child abuse.

Meanwhile, despite humanitarian efforts by the government, NGOs and donor agencies to gradually improve the life of the people in the region, children still suffer from the lack of basic health facilities. "UNICEF is doing what it can but there are too many temporary schools without facilities like water or sanitation," Penny said.

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