By Taylor Breckles (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: October 1, 2014
Criminology students Marie Verbenkov and Jeff Schneider are focused on putting an end to the recruitment of child soldiers.
As part of their criminology practicum, Verbenkov and Schneider are working with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative (RDCSI), an organization which seeks to end the use and recruitment of child soldiers, and CKR Global, a risk mitigation firm. This will be the fourth year of the partnership between CKR Global and UFV criminology practicum students.
The students are researching the nature of child soldier activities as well as the human rights implications of the practice, focusing on Chad and South Sudan. As a written component of the practicum, Verbenkov and Schneider will develop detailed country reports providing specific information about children’s rights and safety in these countries, including how to prevent them from being conscripted as soldiers or otherwise exploited. These country reports will be added to a training handbook for the RDCSI’s security sector actors — personnel who are often the first point of contact for child soldiers.
Criminology practicum coordinator Kim Williams, who is leading the project at UFV, hopes to apply the knowledge students learn in the classroom to larger issues.
“I think that the students are excelling,” she said. “I think that they enjoy the opportunity to not only learn about open-source intelligence and investigation work in terms of the country report piece, but I think also putting them in touch with social justice issues as they apply to an international audience [is important].”
According to Williams, she has not received any information regarding the specifics of this practicum, as the project began in September and the students have not yet handed in their first report.
“Whatever phase the project is at, [the students] will be a part of it in real time and they’ll get a lot of operational, real-time experience,” she said.
Williams is unsure as to whether or not the students will be able to travel for this particular practicum; however, she stresses that should the opportunity arise, the students would be encouraged to take it.
According to the RDCSI’s website, it’s estimated that 300,000 children are currently involved in armed forces around the world.
With files from Valerie Franklin.
