A top United Nations official has described King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center›s (KSrelief) program to rehabilitate child combatants in armed conflicts as one of the best in the world and discussed avenues of future collaboration with the center in the field. Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor general of KSrelief, recently met with Virginia Gamba, special representative of the UN secretary-general for children and armed conflict, at KSrelief's headquarters in Riyadh. Gamba, a native of Argentina, has more than 30 years of experience and professional leadership on issues related to disarmament, peace and security. During their meeting, Al-Rabeeah briefed Gamba about the scope of relief and humanitarian work being provided by the center to crisis-affected countries around the world, including Yemen, where KSrelief has implemented 321 projects. Of particular interest to Gamba were the center's Child Soldiers Rehabilitation Program and the programs to disarm land mines and provide land mine victims with artificial limbs. One of the main topics of discussion in the meeting was the use of children in Yemen and elsewhere as human shields and combatants in armed conflicts. Al-Rabeeah explained to Gamba that in Yemen, Houthi militias have committed numerous human rights violations against Yemenis and others, inflicting great psychological and physical damage to children and other at-risk groups. These violations include the deployment of land mines and other IEDs, the bombing of water-generation stations, and the looting and confiscation of humanitarian aid. Al-Rabeeah highlighted the center›s efforts to raise awareness about children›s suffering around the world, and explained that KSrelief has implemented large numbers of projects focused on assisting children in the fields of food, health, nutrition, education, and psychosocial and physical rehabilitation. The two officials discussed a number of topics related to humanitarian and relief issues and the possibility of future collaboration in the fields of humanitarian staff capacity-building and child protection. In remarks following the meeting, Gamba said: "For some years now, we have seen the progress of the work of the center, and how it has carried out its work in regions affected by conflict, including Yemen. My office has now started a global coalition for the reintegration of former child soldiers – a global effort across four continents. We have put together a group of 16 distinguished experts who have experience in the reintegration of child soldiers; one of the global experts that we feel should be there is KSrelief." "Today," she continued, "we come to offer (KSrelief) an invitation to join this expert advisory group on the reintegration of child soldiers, which we are launching in the UN this year." "Across the world, in many countries and situations, there are rehabilitation attempts being made with all former child soldiers, but some of these are not very good as they are very short and very basic. The difference between them and the one you are doing is that (KSrelief›s) is for a longer term and is more comprehensive in character than (programs in) other parts of the world. So, what we need is to start working together to see what you have learned from your experience, and see if it could be replicated in other places. I think that from what we have seen globally, (yours) is one of the better programs. But it has to be refined to fit a global model; this is what we will be working together on." — SG
