Child Soldiers, childhoods lost to war

An estimated 300,000 children and teens are currently involved in armed conflicts in over thirty different countries around the world. Most of them are teens, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, while some are as young as seven years old.

Child involvement in war comes often at the frontlines of battle, but it also takes place in the sidelines as lookouts, go-betweens, human shields, administrative workers, spies or sex slaves.

The issue of child combatants was first addressed in the1996 UN study “the impact of conflict on children” carried out by Mozambique’s former Minister of Education Graça Machel.

The Machel study noted children are often forced into soldiering or driven to it for having their basic rights disrespected, such as for example the right to safety. It also questions the notion of voluntary recruitment and organizations that enter into conflict for political gain, over manipulating young minds.

One important victory was the Special Court for Sierra Leone ruling in 2004 that the recruitment or use of children under age 15 in hostilities is a war crime under customary international law.

To fully disengage children from war and encourage their reintegration and active participation in peaceful societies, the international community has included children in the Integrated Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS) this past December 2006.

The changing nature of conflicts and COAV

The Machel study addresses what it calls the changing nature of conflicts, noting that more and more they are carried out within the confines of national borders.

A new phenomenon that shares some similarities of the child soldier issue, is the emergence of children involved in armed violence outside of war situations. Often known as COAV for short, the term describes the plight of children involved in organized armed violence in mostly urban settings.

These children share with child soldiers many of the reasons that draw them into armed violence, performing similar roles, carrying much the same weaponry and subject to being trapped in the same self-perpetuating cycle of violence.

But they are not in armies. They are involved in gangs, transnational crime, militias and paramilitary organizations that do not claim political goals.

Since these children are mobilized by illegal forces they are also subject to increased criminalization, a trend that goes against the international Convention on Child Rights.

Child participation in armed urban violence has also been increasingly the topic of analysis of gender dynamics.

Quotes from the Machel Study:

On children and firearms:

“Involving children as soldiers has been made easier by the proliferation of inexpensive light weapons. (...) these guns are so light that children can use them and so simple that they can be stripped and reassembled by a child of 10.

(...) the poorest communities now have access to deadly weapons capable of transforming any local conflict into a bloody slaughter. In Uganda, an AK-47 automatic machine gun can be purchased for the cost of a chicken, and in northern Kenya, it can be bought for the price of a goat.

On child rights:

“(…) war violates every right of a child, the right to life, the right to be with family and community, the right to health, the right to the development of the personality and the right to be nurtured and protected.”

On the recruitment of child soldiers:

“(…) increasingly however, adults are deliberately conscripting children as soldiers. Some commanders have noted the desirability of child soldiers because they “are more obedient, do not question orders and are easier to manipulate than adult soldiers”

Read Further:

The Graça Machel 10-year Review Concept Note (word)

On child soldiers in Sierra Leone, excerpts from the Special Court for Sierra Leone Statute and Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report

The 2007 "Paris Commitments" (PDF) complement existing legal and political mechanisms already in place. The "Paris Principles (PDF)" sets forth a wide range of principles relating to the protection of children from recruitment or use in armed conflict, their release and successful reintegration into civilian life .It also addresses the need for long term prevention strategies in order to definitively end children's involvement in armed conflict, and was signed by 58 governments.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

Nonprofit activist group working to stop the recruitment of children in war.

Worst forms of Child Labour convention, 1999 adopted in 1999 exploitation – compulsory recruitment

The Convention on the Rights of the Child

Read Further:

"Congo's Child Soldiers" by Time.com photographer Cedric Gerbehaye: Documents a transit center in Ituri District, where the UN and the government of Congo struggle to re-integrate former militia members back into society

Girls at UN meeting urge global action

Sierra Leone: Special court affirms child soldier recruitment is a crime

Soldier Boys and Girls

Sri Lanka: No Travel for Child Soldier Recruiters

Book review on novels written by former child soldiers, from The Observer:

Why we have fallen for Africa's lost boys

'Early warning' to prevent conflicts in Latin America

Diamonds, a girls best friend?