UNICEF NZ is welcoming news that the international treaty banning cluster munitions will soon become binding international law.

The treaty has received its 30th ratification, meaning that it will become binding international law six months from now. New Zealand became the 22nd nation and first Pacific Island state to ratify the treaty on 22 December 2009.

UNICEF NZ Advocacy Manager International, Vicki Soanes, says that the treaty is good news for children.

“It’s a testament to the efforts of many organisations that worked tirelessly to ensure that thousands of deaths and devastating injuries caused by cluster munitions would be prevented in the future.”

Cluster bombs are a type of munition that contains a number of bomblets inside. The smaller bombs spread out over a wide area and can remain “active” for decades, rendering the area uninhabitable.

Bomblets are frequently found in school yards, fields and other areas where children play and explore. Research has shown that roughly 40 per cent of victims of cluster bombs are children who are injured or killed long after direct hostilities end. Children are particularly at risk from cluster munitions as they are small and shiny and attract children’s natural curiosity.

In 2008 in Laos, for example, nine children were searching around an old bomb crater for little crabs to eat, about 50 metres from their village. Instead, the children found a cluster bomb dating from the Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s. It exploded, killing four boys. Five other children were badly injured.

Some 67 per cent of cluster munition casualties in Kosovo were 19 or younger – making children a majority of the casualties in this area.

Cluster munitions have been in use for over six decades. They continue to contaminate wide areas of countries like Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia in Asia, as well as Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon.

UNICEF is a member of the Aotearoa NZ Cluster Munitions Coalition which has worked in support of the international ban.