http://www.bbcnc.org.uk/online/oneworld/partners/unicef/landmines1.html (The Risc Disc Volume 2, 10/1995)
There are an estimated 100 million of these devices already in the ground, with another 100 million lying in stockpiles, ready for use.
No continent has been spared. The greatest concentrations of mines are in Africa and Asia, but it is estimated that more mines are now being laid in Central and Eastern Europe, particularly in the republics of former Yugoslavia, than in any other region. The most heavily mined country in the world is Afghanistan, where there are an estimated 10 to 15 million of them. The second largest concentration is in Angola, which has 9 million, with more being laid each day. Cambodia has more mines than children - two for every child.
It is estimated that landmines have killed or injured more than one million people since 1975, the vast majority of them civilians, including an appalling number of children. Decades after they are laid, landmines can still kill. If there is no ban, the mines laid today could still be active in the middle of the next century. Not surprising then, that Cambodians call them "eternal sentinels".
Many land-mine victims, fifty per cent or more, are killed outright by the blast or die before medical help can be given. Children are particularly vulnerable because they are closer to the centre of the blast and because their chances of surviving massive loss of blood is minimal.
Children are often the victims of their own curiosity and love of play. Mines, with their different shapes and colours, can be enticing. The tiny butterfly mine was dubbed the "green parrot" by children in Afghanistan and in northern Iraq, Kurdish children use land-mines to build their go-karts. Familiarity breeds contempt - the sheer numbers of mines scattered over the landscape often leads a child to regard them as harmless everyday objects.
In fact, the anti-personnel mine is now the ultimate weapon of terror. It is used to subjugate whole populations and is capable of bringing entire societies to a grinding halt.
They have been laid in villages, fields, forests and mountains, along riverbanks, on pathways, roads and bridges and even inside houses. Whatever the location, the intention is the same: to intimidate civilians, to deny them the chance to plant, to travel, to lead their ordinary everyday life.
"So many children have been trapped indoors or underground during the conflict, in damp, dark airless rooms. As soon as the fighting is over, they are desperate to get out and have a look round. All they want to do it to breathe in the fresh air - to run and play and live a normal life again. Try telling them they can't do that."
Nevertheless, the Mines Awareness Programmes are remarkably successful. The Mobile Demonstration Project in former Yugoslavia visits primary schools, exhibiting explosive devices likely to be found in the area; staging live explosions in school yards; and showing children, teachers and parents how to recognise and deal with unexploded devices. Children have been given a telephone number to call if they spot a mine and, already, thousands have been located and deactivated.
"It's not the most appealing or popular part of our work," says Perks, "but it's one of the most vital. It's a job we must be vigilant about every day of the year."
Deminers must inch their way across minefields on their stomachs, delicately probing the ground with thin metal rods. The rods must be held at a 30 degree angle as they sink into the earth. The ground must be probed 400 times in every single square metre to locate each tiny killer. It's the only way to be sure, but it takes nerves of steel.
One person can, if the going is good, clear just 20 to 50 square metres of land per day at a cost of anything up to US $1000 per mine cleared.
An anti-personnel mine, on the other hand, costs as little as US$3. For every hour spent laying a mine, one hundred will be spent in lifting and disarming it. The sad fact is that the efforts to clear minefields cannot keep pace with the speed at which new mines are laid. This is one of the most powerful arguments for a total ban.
The UK opposes a blanket ban on landmines, and is keen on an opt-out which would allow the UK to continue to export landmines which are equipped with self-destruct or self-neutralising mechanisms.
Rae McGrath, Director of the Mines Advisory Group, is unimpressed:
"Some sources put the failure rate of self-destruct munitions deployed in the Gulf War as high as 25% and even the manufacturers accept that a 5% dud rate is a fair assessment"
This means that such mines could still have to be laboriously cleared before civilians could use the land again.
In the meantime, UK manufacturers are known to have produced no fewer than nine different models of anti-personnel land mines. Recent exporters include British Aerospace (Royal Ordnance) and Thorn/EMI Electronics (Defence Systems Division).
UNICEF (UK) is urging the UK Government to ratify the 1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention. The Convention will be reviewed at a conference in Geneva, currently scheduled for September 1995. The UK Government must come to a final policy decision early in 1995 in preparation for the autumn conference.
"It is essential," says Rae McGrath, that grass roots support for a ban on manufacture, trade and transfer is mobilised to oppose the present stance.
"With hundreds of civilians being maimed and killed every week it is essential that the campaign grows and sends a message to the politicians, the arms dealers and the military that the people of this country do not support the use and trade in these weapons. It needs to be made an election issue for MPs and MEPs over and above any party loyalty on the grounds that the humanitarian, moral and economic costs are too high."
This article first appeared in Children First!, Winter 1994, Issue 27,
published by the United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF.
ęCopyright UNICEF 1994
UNICEF