By Alyssa Misner
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Boy soldiers from Ugandan supported Congolese rebel movement. ©APGraphicsBank |
Governments and armed groups have long forced their most vulnerable citizens - poor, illiterate and rural children - to be pawns of war. But now that the annual global trade in legal and illicit small arms has reached some $5 billion, children are experiencing violence that is characterized by increased "savagery and ferocity," says Jimmie Briggs, author of Innocents Lost: When Child Soldiers Go to War.
Estimates of the number of child soldiers vary wildly, with the United Nations counting some 300,000 and other experts claiming 100,000. The problem persists despite legislation to end it and the disastrous long-term consequences. Premature exposure to violence complicates children's reintegration into society and perpetuates cycles of hostility in conflict-ridden hotspots.
Children also labor on the front lines as messengers, guards and sexual slaves. Warring factions in Sri Lanka, Burma, the Philippines, Nepal, Russia, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan and Colombia have exploited children, usually between the ages of 14 and 16, but sometimes as young as 7, according to the United Nations.
Rebel groups are not the only guilty party. In Sri Lanka, for example, both government-allied paramilitaries and the rebel group Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have abducted large numbers of children to fight a shadow war since the 2002 ceasefire agreement. Girls too, are embroiled in that conflict and in many others around the world: UNICEF estimates that as many as 40 percent of child recruits are girls taken as "/magazine/winter_2006/children_war/wives" for fighters, resulting in a class of young, sexually exploited single mothers.
The issue has not gone unnoticed. The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in February 2002, setting the minimum age of recruitment into armed groups at 18. The consensus was signed by 122 countries; only the United States and Somalia have not ratified it. In July, Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.) introduced H.R. 5966, the Child Soldier Prevention Act, to the House of Representatives. The House Committee on International Relations is currently reviewing the resolution, which prohibits U.S. military assistance (with a waiver for national interest) to governments employing children under 18 in their armed forces.
"As for irregular forces, there's not much you can do; it's beyond any legislation," Rep. Smith's policy advisor on Africa, Gregory Simpkins, told AI magazine. "But you have to get the governments to comply."
The United Nations is working to demobilize and rehabilitate child soldiers, who face enormous psychological and economic difficulties. Young fighters have few marketable skills due to missed education, and female soldiers can face ostracism if they return to their communities with children. 
Learn more about the Innocents Lost curriculum guide, created in conjunction with AIUSA's Human Rights Education program »
