February 12 has been established since 2002 as Red Hand Day with the aim of broad information on issues related to the involvement of children in warfare. On 12 February 2002, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on Armed Conflict came into force. World Red Hand Day also aims to raise reminder and awareness among the world's citizens regarding children who often are, without their will, in armed groups serving in war fronts and conflicts all over the globe.
More than 300,000 children worldwide join the army without their will and participate in war, either directly or indirectly, either as carriers or messengers, or even as human shields. Also, in several countries, under the weight of civil wars, childhood gives its place to child soldiers who experience from an early age the horrible and ruthless face of the war. More than 2 million children because of wars and almost 15 million were displaced or became refugees from various conflicts over the last decade.
As EDON, we are against wars and human exploitation by humans, let alone when this exploitation concerns children. It must be a requirement for all of us not to lose any human life at the altar of war, since it is our duty as members of the human race, to work for world peace, to safeguard the rights and welfare of the peoples, away from occupying armies and imperialist wars that sacrifice as many people as they need to make the imperialist machine work.
Let us turn our gaze to these children and let us all make a substantial contribution in order to stop this inhuman and brutal behavior, which pushes children into arming and killing other people in cold blood. Our responsibility and duty is the struggle for the protection of human rights, for the well-being and peace of the peoples, for equality, social justice and socialism.