Justice for child soldiers after DRC warlord Thomas Lubanga compelled to pay US$10 million in damages
The judges said Lubanga was also liable for compensation due to 425 victims, identified by the court, and who at the time of the crimes in 2002-03 were all under 15
International war crimes judges awarded US$10 million in landmark reparations to “hundreds or thousands” of former child soldiers conscripted into a Congolese militia and left brutalised by the horrific experience.
Warlord Thomas Lubanga, 56, was jailed for 14 years after being convicted in 2012 at the International Criminal Court (ICC) of abducting boys and girls and press-ganging them into his Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) in the eastern Ituri region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The judges said Lubanga was also liable for compensation due to 425 victims, identified by the court, and who at the time of the crimes in 2002-03 were all under 15.
But they stressed that “hundreds or even thousands of additional victims” suffered at the hands of Lubanga’s militia.
Each of the 425 named victims had suffered harm amounting to US$8,000 each, for a total of US$3.4 million, presiding judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut said.
How do you calculate a lost youth? What it is worth?
The judges then awarded a further US$6.6 million to help others who may now come forward.