The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (CSUCS) launched its 2004 Global report in London on 17 November 2004, and called on the United Nations to "name, shame and pursue armies and militias which use children to fight".
The Coalition, which has members in dozens of countries all over the world, conducted research for this report with the help of a wide range of sources, including governments, UN agencies and peacekeeping missions, other intergovernmental organizations, news media, academic sources, and human rights and humanitarian organizations.
Full text of the report is available at (http://www.
child-soldiers.
org/resources/global-reports).
The report provided coverage concerning the use of children as soldiers all over the world.
It provided that under-18s have been used in 22 conflicts in the world in the last three years, including the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, a member of the CSUCS and a contributor to the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Israel section renews its call, as well as the Coalition's, on the Palestinian National Authority to stop the recruitment of under18-s in its security apparatuses, even in civil affairs departments, the Palestinian factions to refrain from using children in resistance activities that bear military nature of any kind, and on the international community to pressure Israel to end the serious use of Palestinian children as collaborators and informants and the treatment of Palestinian juveniles as adults in the OPT.
Al Mezan Center believes that it is possible to free children in the world from being used in all kinds of battles, and spare their precious life and well-being.
Al Mezan also calls on the United Nations' State Parties, and Arab states, to ratify Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and double the efforts to protect children through the legitimate international channels.