Topic: Combating the Spread of Small Arms and Light Weapons
Country: Morocco
Delegate Name: Conor Streng
School: Forest Hills Northern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Morocco position papers GLIMUN 2014 committees
The spread of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALWs) is a major problem in the world. SALWs can be easily stored and carried making them hard to find. There are an estimated 600 million circulating around the globe but unfortunately this isn’t a sure fact because not all countries share information about SALW use in their country. Many terrorist and rebel groups carry them and because of the group’s small size it makes it easy to slip under the radar. Not to mention the number of smuggling operations, illicit manufacturing, police/military stockpiles and theft that happen worldwide. All this adds up to an unknown amount of SALWs. These weapons help with many wide ranging crimes including but not limited to murder, torture, rape and dismemberment.
SALWs have fueled crime and terrorism throughout the Kingdom of Morocco. Therefore, the Kingdom of Morocco supports taking SALWs out of circulation. We think stronger actions need to be taken to stop the spread of these deadly weapons. To do this, the Kingdom of Morocco needs international assistance. This assistance would also help to stop human and drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism which all have a direct correlation with the spread of SALWs.
We would like to emphasize that SALWs should bear serial numbers which would help with data entries and record-keeping. Databases should be available at all borders and brought to the attention of security forces as well. We should also start an information sharing policy concerning the production, distribution and confiscation of SALWs. This would help to trace them from one country to the next and therefore to help find the distributors. Laws should be put into place to help crack down on smugglers and ban manufacturers from selling them to corporations. Manufactures should only be allowed to sell to governments that way the UN would have some jurisdiction because of their powers over governments.
