The Red Hand Campaign

Your Red Hand makes the protest visible – worldwide!

Don’t let children die for you - THEY are the future! (Rahel Fuchs, Schleiz, Germany)
Colourful protest: Adolescents’ and adults’ demands are sent to UN-politicians
Photo: Aktion Weißes Friedenband

According to an additional protocol from the UN Convention of Children Rights the misuse of child soldiers has been illegal since 12 February 2002. Unfortunately, the number of child soldiers has hardly changed since then. There are still about 250,000 children which are used in adults’ wars.

In order to protest against this plight 300,000 red hand prints have been collected in over 30 countries in the time between the Red Hand Days in 2008 and in 2009. And this campaign is still proceeding. We appeal to adults and especially to children and adolescents to collect prints of red hands: for example in schools, at city festivals, in pedestrian areas. Afterwards there is two options:

1. Hand them over mail to the mayor, to the member of the Bundestag, Landestag or European Parliament of your electoral ward with the petition to stand up for the above mentioned demands and to be politically proactive. It is important that the representatives will inform you within a short period of time about their actions.
2. Or send your red hands to the United Nations missions in New York of the countries that have not yet ratified the optional protocol. Include a message urging them to do so as soon as possible. A sample message and list of addresses is at the end of this resource pack.

We demand:

1. “Straight 18”: Children under 18 shall not be recruited neither voluntarily nor by force and they shall not be used as soldiers.
2. Penalty: Those who recruit children and use them as soldiers must be canonised by the UN security council.
3. Protection: Former child soldiers must have access to with medical and psychological help.
4. Political asylum: Asylum should be granted to former child soldiers in the countries they fled to.
5. Aid programme: Financial resources for reintegration programs for child soldiers should be increased.
6. Export of arms: No arms, component parts or monition shall be exported to conflict zones where there are child soldiers.

You can find more information and an instruction for the campaign on www.aktion-rote-hand.de
Please inform us about your actions, about the number of collected hands and the politician’s reactions. We want to make the international protest visible. Load up a short report and photos (here) and send us an email to

Organisations with their own Webpage

If your organization has its own webpage, we can link the two pages: The condition is that our link leads directly to your Red Hand Day Campaign. www.redhandday.org shows that there are people worldwide standing up against the use of child soldiers.

Organisations supporting the global Red Hand campaign: