A/HRC/4/72 page 11 and other displaced persons, especially children. In particular in, but not confined to the African context, the infiltration of refugee camps by armed elements undermines the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum and the integrity of the national and international refugee protection system. 39. In order to address this issue, which is of serious concern, UNHCR has finalized and officially launched its Operational Guidelines on Maintaining the Humanitarian and Civilian Character of Asylum. These guidelines were produced upon request of the Executive Committee of the UNHCR Programme (Conclusion No. 94) to provide advice on the disarmament of armed elements and the identification, separation and internment of combatants. The guidelines are a result of a consultative process engaging a number of relevant partners, most notably the ICRC. The guidelines also include a chapter on practical measures to enhance security in camps, as UNHCR considers that the humanitarian character of camps and separation of combatants must be part of a comprehensive security strategy. 40. UNHCR wishes to re- emphasize that under-age recruitment - particularly if based on the abduction of the child - constitutes a serious human rights violation. As such, it may make the concerned child eligible for refugee status, if the child has a well-founded fear of being subjected to under-age recruitment for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. In cases where no such nexus to one of the 5 grounds of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees can be established, non-refoulement obligations deriving from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other human rights instruments may apply and in this context UNHCR would like to draw particular attention to the applicable standards expressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in its general comment No. 6 (2005) on the treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin. (CRC/GC/2005/6). VI. DESK REVIEW 41. The following refers to specific situation that illustrates the issue of abduction of children on the African continent and provides an overview of relevant documentation regrouped according to the main “end uses” of abduction as stipulated in the working definition. While these classifications do overlap, the distinctions are preserved with a view to gaining new insights into analysis of the problem. Armed conflict 42. According to a survey undertaken by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) in Uganda in June 2004 on “Child labour and armed conflict in Uganda”: “A total of 213 children found in households reported that they had ever been abducted and of these 30 (14.1 per cent) stated that they had been abducted on more than one occasion. There were by far more male (167) than female (46) abductees. However, females were more likely to have been abducted more than once; out of the 46 female abductees 10 (21.7 per cent) had been abducted more than once compared with 20 out of the 167 male abductees (12 per cent). Most of the former abductees were in the age group 14-17 (46.7 per cent) followed by those 10-13 (33.6 per cent) and only 18 were in the age group 5-9. Clearly the strategy is to abduct those old enough to be of use to rebels either as combatants or porters or