makes the application and children automatically assume the granted asylum status. In recognized periods of conflict, such as the 1993 Burundi civil war and the 1994 Rwanda genocide, there is a prima facie status for all refugees including unaccompanied children. Refugees married to Tanzanians irrespective of gender, obtain residential status and/or naturalization; this guarantees and safeguards the rights of children of such unions. Children in Armed Conflict Article 22 Tanzania does not have armed groups operating on or from its territory. It has been involved in a situation of armed conflict only once since independence when in 1979 Ugandan troops - under the rule of former President Idi Amin - briefly invaded north west Tanzania. Children were not recruited or involved in the conflict. Although in exceptional circumstances, the law allows for the recruitment of persons under the age of eighteen years, in practice there has been no such recruitment, and no members of the Tanzania People Defence Force (TPDF) are under eighteen. The TPDF is manned solely by volunteers and there is no conscription; no schools are under its control. Although Tanzania does not have a long history of armed conflict, it has nevertheless shown commitment to international humanitarian laws related to conflict and has acceded to - or ratified - a number of critical conventions including (i) the Four Geneva Conventions plus their two additional protocols; (ii) the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Antipersonnel Mines and on their Destruction;51 (iii) the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court; and (iv) the Optional Protocol to the CRC on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts. 51 Tanzania had retained 23,987 stockpiled landmines for military purposes only by May 1st 2005 and afterwards they destroyed 22,885 and retained only 1,102 for same purpose. 59