(HRW) – We write in advance of your upcoming pre-sessional review of the Democratic Republic of Congo government’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This submission relates to Articles 6, 19, 28, 29, 34, 35, 37, and 38 of the Convention of the Rights of the Child. It proposes issues and questions that Committee members may wish to raise with the government while reviewing its compliance with these articles. Evidence included in this submission is based in part on Human Rights Watch’s research in the course of a report on the use of schools for child recruitment and other military purposes. This research included interviews with more than 120 people, including 19 children ages 10 to 17, conducted between June and July 2013, and additional research by Human Rights Watch in the region since then. It covers incidents that occurred between April 2012 and December 2014 in North and South Kivu provinces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Human Rights Watch documented attacks on schools or the use of schools for military purposes between 2012 and 2014 by the Congolese army, the M23 armed group, various Congolese Hutu militia groups known as the Nyatura, Mai Mai Sheka and other Mai Mai groups, and the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération de Rwanda, FDLR). Further information can be found in Human Rights Watch’s report, “Our School Became the Battlefield: Using Schools for Child Recruitment and Military Purposes in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.”

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