Police get drilled on handling child soldiers

The executive seminar was meant to prepare the police in the region to understand child soldiers in the event they are deployed to regions where there is war. The seminar was organised by Canada's Child Soldier Initiative (CSI) for southern African police officers. CSI project coordinator, Tanya Zayed said they have realised that there is no regional or global body that has developed a doctrine to deal with the issue of child soldiers.

"We are trying to fill that gap. The seminar is to introduce them to the subject, where we talk about international standards and also get a perspective on child soldiers from those who experienced it. We had one, Kon Kelei, a South Sudanese who was himself a child soldier and he shared his story with the seminar," she said. The seminar focused on what the officers should do in their interaction with child soldiers during peacekeeping operations.