Editorial

This CO Update comes a month after I returned from South Africa, where WRI held its first ever International Conference in Africa. The conference was an amazing event, and will have impacts on the work of the Right to Refuse to Kill programme for years to come. We made contacts with new movements for conscientious objection and against conscription and militarisation, especially in Africa.

In the months since the last CO Update was released, conscription has begun in UAE, and also enacted in the Kurdish semi-autonomous region of Syria.

In Colombia, a conscientious objector has finally been granted a tutela which should guarantee protection from recruitment. Yet in the last days another has been forcibly recruited in a raid in a Metro station. Recruitment of children has been taking place in South Sudan, but we also share stories of draft evasion and conscientious objection in Mozambique and Israel.

There's also a report looking at the ways in which conscientious objectors to military service are punished and discriminated against in various countries.

Finally, I'm really glad to present a new resource from WRI: a website on youth militarisation, and the actions that can be taken to prevent it. Please share it with your contacts - antimili-youth.net. In tandem with this launch, we're promoting a week of action for military-free education and research. Across the world, militaries gain access to young people through education systems. It gives them an extraordinary chance to shape every generation's perception of military violence, and lay the groundwork for future recruitment. We're taking action against this together on 25 - 31 October - think about whether you'd like to join us.

Hannah Brock