1. Child Soldiers

2. Contemporary Crisis 250,000 child soldiers worldwide
recent United Nations estimation:
250,000 child soldiers worldwide
current Amnesty International count:
over 300,000 child soldiers
in more than 85 countries
both boys & girls
ages 8 to 18

3. A Global Issue Afghanistan Sri Lanka Congo Chechnya Thailand Nepal
Sudan
Iraq
Columbia
Somalia
Palestine

4. What is a Child Soldier?
“A person under the age of 18 who directly or indirectly participates in an armed conflict as part of an armed force or group.”

5. Why are Children Used?
Poverty – Leaders find it easier to recruit young children when there is widespread poverty. Many will consider they have nothing to lose by entering into war, especially if they get meals, clothing, and medical care
Manipulation – Children are easier to manipulate and are cheaper than adults

6. Why are Children Used?
Environment – Children who grow up with a country that has been at war see it as a way of life
Light Weapons – Weapons have become lighter, so anyone can use them. With the end of the Cold War, many weapons were sold cheaply on the world market

7. “The Perfect Weapon” adults can resist warlords; children can’t
available in great numbers
intensely loyal
fearless
Expendable
Much cheaper than adults

8. Roles infantry shock troops raiders sentries spies trench diggers
porters

9. Exploitation Recruited Abducted Forced to serve
propaganda
poverty
Abducted
kidnapped from families
taken from orphanages
Forced to serve
Uganda: Lord’s Resistance Army
teaches child soldiers to burn
huts and beat infants to death
Iran: child soldiers used to
clear mine fields in 1980s
Palestine: children from the
West Bank & Gaza used
as suicide bombers
"No one is born violent. No child in Africa,
Latin America, or Asia wants to be part of war.”
— Ishmael Beah at a Paris conference, author of A Long Way Gone

10. Some “Volunteer” promise of safety sense of community
motivated by poverty & hunger

11. Why “choose” to join an armed group?
Hunger
Poverty
Loss of family / home
Protection
Tricked
Vengeance
Defining their identity

12. Trained to Kill
Thailand
Liberia
Uganda
Iraq
Palestine

13. Bound by Belief commanders conjure spirits magic & superstition
oils & amulets
"The commanders would wear certain pearls and said that guns wouldn't hurt us, and we believed it.''
— Beah
In the Congo, leaders told boys that if they
ate their victims they would grow stronger.

14. Intimidated by Fear extreme punishments death for desertion
rejection upon return
orphaned, homeless
no where else to go
"These are brutally thuggy people who don't want to rule politically and have no strategy for winning a war.''
— Professor Neil Boothby
Columbia University

15. Weakened by Deprivation
separated from families
denied educational opportunities
denied health care
denied a childhood

16. Fueled by Drug Use amphetamines marijuana “brown brown”
(cocaine and gunpowder)
“I shot at everything that moved.”
— Beah
Drawing by former child soldier Ishamel A. Kamara, age 18.

17. Trapped in Abuse mental & emotional physical sexual chemical
15-year-old soldier with
her infant in Liberia

18. Amputation
Rebels called the amputation of just four fingers “one love” after the rastafarian phrase “thumbs up.”
There are more than 6,000 amputees in Sierra Leone as a result of civil war. Former Liberian leader, Charles Taylor, is accused of backing a rebel group that cut off limbs, mutilated and raped thousands of civilians in Sierra Leone.

19. Human Rights Groups’ Efforts
restore children to their families when possible
return to former communities
enroll in schools
place in homes
Children at a mission school in Africa
“It's ridiculous to appeal to
human rights with these groups
because they are so far on the criminal end of the spectrum.”
— Victoria Forbes Adam
Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers

20. United Nations Involvement
UN passed protocols:
no combatants under age 18

21. Rescue, Rehabilitation & Hope
Above: Maxwell Fornah and Victor Musa, members of the Single Leg Amputee Sports Club of Sierra Leone, Freetown April 2006.

23. About Ishmael Beah
At the age of twelve, Ishmael fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts Eventually released by the army and sent to a UNICEF rehabiliation center, he struggled to regain his humanity and to reenter the world of civilians, who viewed him with fear and suspicion.