Child Soldiers

In some areas of the world, there are children that do not wake up with their parents, do not find the table set for breakfast, do not play with friends, do not go to school.

In some areas of the world, there are children that do wake up with the sound of a bomb fallen right on the opposite building, do not have any food left, do play with a gun that a rebel gave them to fight. Their childhood is gone. So is their future. 

Troopers, adult people trained to shoot, too often come back from war with the so-called invisible injuries. Invisible, they say. Post-traumatic stress disorder and mild traumatic brain injuries are among the most diagnosed "side effects". Can you imagine the consequences that war have on children? 

Children are among the most vulnerable in conflicts and easily become targets, together with their community. There are times in which a child is the one looking for a target, the one who becomes the unwitting protagonist of the story.

It has been estimated that over 250,000 children around the world are used as soldiers. The recruitment of children by armed groups has become a serious humanitarian problem.

THERE ARE WORDS THAT SIMPLY DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER:

CHILDREN and WAR
CHILDREN and GUNS

Child soldiers, an alarming escalation. 

The participation of children as soldiers has become one of the most alarming trends in armed conflict. While the use of young children as soldiers is not really new, what is frightening nowadays is the escalation in the use of children as fighters. Why so? One reason is the proliferation of light weapons. Moreover, children are much more easier to intimidate and manipulate than adults. They are less likely than adults to run away and do not demand salaries.

How are children recruited? 

Although the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict raised the standard of age set by the Convention and the 1949 Geneva Conventions from 15 to 18 years old, there are countries that still conscript children under 18 in conformity with national law. Moreover, even where the legal minimum age is set at 18, the law is not necessarily a safeguard. One big problem is given by the inadequacy -or no existence- of birth registration: children do not know how old they are and recruiters can only guess looking at their physical development.

In many instances, recruits are arbitrarily seized from the streets or even from schools and orphanages. However, it might happen also on voluntary basis. Can you think at this act as a genuine one? It is clearly misleading to consider this voluntary. The truth is that the choice is not exercised freely. They may be driven by any of several forces, including cultural, social, economic or political pressures. 

Hunger and poverty may lead parents to offer their children for service, or children themselves might volunteer since joining an army could be the only way to survive being food and protection secured. In addition, children who have grown up surrounded by violence see this as a permanent way of life. After all, when schools are closed and families fragmented, there are few influences that can compete with a warrior's life. Then, there are children who feel obliged to become soldiers for their own protection, while others find military life to be the most attractive option. They may see themselves fighting for social justice or they may want to fight for their religious beliefs or cultural identity. Finally, they may also be seeking revenge for the deaths of their parents, brothers or sisters.

Once recruited as soldiers, children generally receive the same treatment as adults, including brutal induction ceremonies and indoctrination.

What to do?

Child soldiers location. Source: A Window to the World.

UNICEF has identified two main complementary paths in order to face the problem: re-integration into the society and prevention of further recruitment.

Former child soldiers have grown up away from their families and have been deprived of many of the normal opportunities for physical, emotional and intellectual development. For an effective reintegration re-establishing contact with the family and the community and their support is essential. In addition, education, and especially the completion of primary schooling, is fundamental to normalize life and to develop an identity separate from that of the soldier. The development of peer relationships and improved self- esteem may also be facilitated through recreational and cultural activities.

Moving to prevention, firstly Governments should work for a rapid adoption of the previously mentioned Optional Protocol. Secondly, they might have to revise their methods of recruitment, establish effective monitoring systems and back them up with legal remedies and institutions that are sufficiently strong to tackle abuses. Moreover, local communities should be involved: if they are sufficiently organized and determined and, of course, aware of national and international laws they could make a difference in preventing children recruitment.

Knowing through testimonies...

A focus on girl child soldiers

2001, Burundi:
F., at that time aged 13, was forced to accompany a group of around 30 combatants. Here follows her paintful testimony.

"They took us as wives straightaway. We had to cook for them. If a cow was killed, we had to cook it...When they came back, they would eat and drink, then they would call for you. They were so many. It was so painful...If they went to attack somewhere or to loot, there was always someone who stayed behind. Then he'd call you. If you refused, they used sticks to whip you...We mostly stayed in the forest but sometimes we had to go with them and carry what they looted...They all had sex with me. I don't know how many people had sex with me. A man would come, then another and another. I wasn't even the youngest. Some girls were even younger than me. Even the commanders called for you. You couldn't refuse...They said they'd kill you if you ran away. Some people fled and didn't come back. We didn't know if they'd got away or had been killed."

Whether or not girls are enlisted into combat depends on the region and on the nature of the militia. The jihadist group Boko Haram, for example, usually uses abducted girls as domestic workers and sex slaves. By way of contrast, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla movement, treats its female members much like their male counterparts.

Girl soldiers have been known to contribute to the functioning of military forces in a variety of ways, from carrying ammunitions, to looting goods, to participating in combat activities. However, fighting alongside male soldiers rarely protects girls from sexual brutality.

As you can easily imagine securing the release of girl soldiers can be difficult, in particular when they are concealed by military commanders as wives of male fighters. As pointed out by Child Soldiers International, girls are frequently the most challenging child soldiers to rehabilitate.

Children, NOT soldiers

In March 2014, Leila Zerrougui, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, and UNICEF, launched a new initiative to end the recruitment and use of children in Government forces in conflict by 2016.
The ‘Children, Not Soldiers’ campaign calls on Governments, regional and non-governmental organizations to work with the UN to intensify efforts to meet the goal of zero use of children by any Government forces by 2016.

The Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in support to the fight against the recruitment of child soldiers stressed that minors "should be armed with pens and textbooks, not guns and grenades".

Show your support to the campaign: photograph yourself with the hastag #childrennotsoldiers

To know more: https://childrenandarmedconflict.un.org/children-not-soldiers/