* UN Security Council moves "hampered by red tape"
* Rights ambassador wants simplified process
* Says between 200,000-250,000 child soldiers globally
By John Irish
PARIS, Oct 3 (Reuters) - France's human rights ambassador said on Monday the United Nations Security Council had to do more to sanction warlords who use child soldiers, labelling current efforts to stop them as inefficient.
Governments and the United Nations have disarmed thousands of children in wartorn regions such as Afghanistan and west Africa since an international accord to stamp out the practice in 2007, but there are still an estimated 200,000-250,000 child soldiers globally.
Francois Zimeray, a former lawyer at the International Criminal Court (ICC), said too much red tape had hampered a special UN Security Council committee set up to monitor the disarming process, create blacklists and sanction individuals.
"The time of warnings is over," Zimeray said. "The time of political sanctions such as travel bans, asset freezes or referring cases to international justice has come."
He said that so far sanctions had been applied to any individual over the issue of child soldiers.
France has adopted a hard line on the child soldier issue since a conference drew up the Paris Principles in 2007.
They set out guidelines to prevent children from being recruited, to help those already involved with armed groups and to rehabilitate them.
So far, 100 countries have signed up to the accord, and Zimeray says that since 2007, about 10,000-20,000 children have been disarmed each year.
BLACKLIST
"The threat (of sanctions) has been efficient because we are seeing regular disarmament, but the sanctions system is still too complicated so we are asking for a simpler mechanism and we want to toughen sanctions and to add pressure on the recruiters," Zimeray said.
The UN blacklist of groups who kill, maim or rape children or recruit and use them as child soldiers includes groups from 14 countries ranging from the Afghan National Police and the Taliban to FARC guerrillas in Colombia and Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Zimeray, whose role has seen him undertake 80 missions across the world, said one key factor in reducing the number of child soldiers was the threat of the war crimes court.
"Often in difficult countries with the most autistic regimes, the thing they fear the most is being dragged in front of the ICC," Zimeray said.
"We may criticise it for going too far or not fast enough, but it has succeeded in being part of the mental landscape. It's interesting to see that the heads of battalions and clans give certain limits to their soldiers for fear of the ICC." (Reporting By John Irish; editing by Andrew Roche)
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
