Child Soldiers

“…We had to go fight on the front. The days we fought we got food “…We had to go fight on the front. The days we fought we got food. But if we didn’t go to the front, we weren’t given anything to eat. I fought through the entire war. I don’t know if I killed people, but I fired a lot. I didn’t enjoy it but I had to do it because I had nothing to eat. I was afraid, but when they have me drugs, I was brave.” - Momo (a child soldier in Liberia from the age of 10)

What is a Child Soldier? According to UNICEF: "A 'child soldier' is defined as any child - boy or girl - under 18 years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but not limited to: cooks, porters, messengers, and anyone accompanying such groups other than family members. It includes girls and boys recruited for sexual purposes and/or forced marriage. The definition, therefore, does not only refer to a child who is carrying, or has carried weapons" (Cape Town Principals, 1997). Ask students to determine what sorts of tasks child soldiers could be required to do. Answers should include cooking, cleaning, operating computers and taking part in combat. Any job a child does, against his or her will, that is affiliated with an armed militia is considered to be a task of a child soldier.

Child Soldiers are being used in over 36 countries worldwide. More than 300,00 children under the age of 18 are currently fighting in conflicts around the world. Hundreds of thousands more have been recruited into armed forces and could be sent into combat at any moment.

Recruitment starts at age 10, and the use of even younger children is not uncommon. Children are easily manipulated and can be drawn into violence that they are too young to resist or understand. Both boys and girls may be sent to the front lines of combat or into minefields ahead of other troops. Some children have been used for suicide missions or forced to commit atrocities against their own family and neighbors. (Others serve as porters or cooks, guards, messengers or spies.)

Child soldiers also may be raped or given to military commanders as sexual slaves. Once recruited, children are subjected to a brief period of terror and physical use to socialize them into violence and train them as soldiers. Children have been forced to witness or take part in the torture and execution of their own relatives. Child soldiers suffer far higher casualty rates than adult soldiers. Those who survive may be permanently disabled, or bear psychological scars from being forced to both commit and witness horrific atrocities.

Children are easier to intimidate and they do as they are told. Children are also less likely than adults to run away and they do not demand salaries. Parents volunteer their children for the army because it may be the only way to secure food, protection, and survival. In some places, the guerrillas provide clothes and two square meals a day.

Child soldiers are often fed crack or other drugs, before they go to neighboring villages to torture and kill. Being small and inconspicuous, children also have particular value as messengers or as spies. (They are even sometimes sent out ahead in waves over minefields.)

Why Become a Child Soldier? Most child soldiers are aged between 14 and 18. While many enlist ‘voluntarily’, research shows that such adolescents see few alternatives to involvement in armed conflict. Some enlist as a means of survival in war-torn regions after family, social and economic structures collapse, or after seeing family members tortured or killed by government forces or armed groups. Others join up because of poverty and lack of work or educational opportunities. Many girls have reported enlisting to escape domestic servitude, violence and sexual abuse. Forcible abductions, sometimes of large numbers of children, continue to occur in some countries. Children as young as nine have been abducted and used in combat.

Girl Soldiers There is growing recognition of girls’ involvement in armed conflict. Girl soldiers are frequently subjected to rape and other forms of sexual violence as well as being involved in combat and other roles. In some cases their communities stigmatise them when they return home. Often girl soldiers are excluded from programmes for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration for child soldiers.

This map indicates only situations in which children have actively participated in conflict. It does not show all countries where children are recruited into government armed forces or armed groups.

List of Countries with Child Soldiers Fighting in Recent and Ongoing Conflicts (G: government armed forces, P: paramilitaries, O: armed opposition groups) Colombia (P,O) Mexico (P,O) Peru (O) Russian Federation (O) Turkey (O) Yugoslavia (former Rep. of) (P,O) Algeria (P,O) Angola (G,O) Burundi (G,O) Chad (G) Republic of Congo (G,O) Dem. Rep. of the Congo (G,O) Eritrea (G) Ethiopia (G) Rwanda (G,O) Sierra Leone (G,P,O) Somalia (all groups) Sudan (G,P,O) Uganda (G,O) Iran (G,O) Iraq (G,O) Israel and Occupied Territories (G,O)

Lebanon (O) Afghanistan (all groups) India (P,O) Indonesia (P,O) Myanmar (G,O) Nepal (O) Pakistan (O) Philippines (O) Solomon Islands (O) Sri Lanka (O) East Timor (P,O) Tajikistan (O) Papua New Guinea (O) Uzbekistan (O)

What’s Going on? Sierra Leone What rights were violated in the cases of Abu, Fatmata and Swankay?

Analysis of News Articles Students should do a second read of the article independently, using three different colors of highlighter to indicate different aspects of the reading: Color #1 is for all evidence that the army and/or the opposition forces in South Sudan were again using child soldiers. Color #2 is for evidence of how the government and the opposition have tried to stop the use of child soldiers. Color #3 is for any evidence that reveals the authors' attitudes or perspectives towards the topic and how they shape their presentation of information. This includes the details and evidence that the authors choose to include and persuasive techniques such as "loaded language."

‘I would like you to give a message ‘I would like you to give a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don’t have to pass through this violence.’ A 15-year-old girl, speaking to Amnesty International in Uganda. She was forcibly abducted at night from her home by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), an armed opposition movement fighting the Ugandan government. She was made to kill a boy who tried to escape. She saw another boy being hacked to death for not raising the alarm when a friend ran away. She was beaten when she dropped a water container and ran for cover under gunfire. She received 35 days of military training and was sent to fight the government army.