Child Soldiers

Abstract

Facilitated by the ready availability of light-weight and easy-to-use weapons and fueled by the conflicts that have marked the decades since the end of the Second World War, children have come to provide a cheap, easily manipulated, and expendable source of human power for service in armed conflicts throughout the world. Data is presented on the global extent and distribution of this form of victimization. During the opening decades of the twenty-first century an estimated 300,000 boys and girls below the internationally recognized legal age of 18 were serving in armed combative groups in countries around the world. The factors that make children a ready and desirable source of military exploitation are analyzed. Some child soldiers voluntarily join. The various ways child soldiers are “recruited” are described. Most are coerced, often by extremely violent means. Child soldiers suffer a host of ills, such as physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual abuse and injury, loss of education and future employment opportunities, physical displacement, and sometimes death. Efforts to help former child soldiers and combat this problem worldwide are discussed. International law and the laws of most countries prohibiting the use of children in armed combat are discussed. In spite of legal prohibitions and international condemnation, their numbers appear to have been reduced only little, and likely only temporarily due only to the cessation of hostilities.