1. What is a “Child Soldier”?
A Child Soldier is…
“any person below 18 years of age who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys, and girls used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes.”

2. Photo Gallery

3. Child Soldier Quick Facts
~250,000 (some as young as age 7) actively fighting
57 parties are actively recruiting child soldiers
29 of those parties are in Africa; there is active fighting in 7 African countries.
Both girls and boys are used as child soldiers. In some countries, like Nepal, Sri Lanka and Uganda, a third or more of the child soldiers were reported to be girls. In some conflicts, girls may be raped, or given to military commanders as "wives."
“Children are cheap, expendable, and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinkable obedience.”

4. How do Kids become Child Soldiers?
Children are forcibly abducted into government or rebel armies or join voluntarily because viable alternatives do not exist (families killed, starvation, etc.)
Forced to take stimulant drugs supplied by leaders
Required to take part in torture killings
One soldier recalls, “You didn’t really care what you were doing... I didn’t think there was any point in being alive anyway.”

6. The UN's 2016 child recruitment list
The map shows the countries where armed forces or groups recruit children, according to the UN’s list of shame in They are: Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

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Red: Enlists from age 16 Orange: Enlists from age 17 Green: Enlists adults age 18+ Black: UN Blacklisted for government-sanctioned recruitment of children

8. Challenges of Reintegration
Demobilization, disarmament and reintegration (DDR) programs specifically aimed at child soldiers have been established in many countries and have assisted former child soldiers to acquire new skills and return to their communities.
Repatriation and rehabilitation is laboriously slow
Children feel isolated in classrooms with other children far younger than themselves, and many have forgotten how to read and write

9. Challenges of Reintegration
Most suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Girls are often deliberately or inadvertently excluded from DDR programs. 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 they are stigmatized by their home communities when they return.

10. Child Soldier Rehabilitation
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11. Ishmael Beah Born: November 23, 1980 in Sierra Leone
Forced to be a child soldier (at age 13)
Now: Author, UNICEF Ambassador for Children Affected by War, Human Rights Activist

12. Ishmael Beah’s Book: A Long Way Gone
Time magazine's Lev Grossman named it one of the Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2007, ranking it at No. 3, and praising it as "painfully sharp,” with its ability to take "readers behind the dead eyes of the child- soldier in a way no other writer has."

13. Conflict in Sierra Leone
Experienced civil war from
The Rebels, knowns as the RUF, ran a horrific regime of enslavement and brutality under the leadership of Foday Sankoh.
 At first, the RUF was popular with Sierra Leoneans as they looked forward to the end of government corruption and the promise of free education and health care and equitable sharing of diamond revenues.

14. The RUF
Quickly, the RUF developed a reputation for its terrible cruelty towards the civilian population - especially its practice of hacking off limbs to intimidate and spread terror among the population, and its widespread use of child soldiers.
When it was first formed, the RUF put forward the slogan, “No More Slaves, No More Masters. Power and Wealth to the People.”

15. Child Soldiers
Child soldiers were heavily recruited in the Sierra Leone Civil War; a total of 11,000 are thought to have participated in the conflict.  
Most were used for attacks on villages and on guard duty at diamond mines as well as guarding the weapons.
The RUF abducted children aged 7-12, but they could be as young as 5 years old. The children were known for their unquestionable obedience and enormous cruelty.

16. Child Soldiers
The child soldiers were conditioned to fight as a result of witnessing and participating in acts of brutality and violence.
Thousands of abducted boys and girls were forced to serve as soldiers or as prostitutes, and those chosen to be fighters were sometimes forced to murder their parents.
For entertainment, some soldiers would bet on the sex of an unborn baby and then slice open a woman's womb to determine the winner.

17. RUF Amputations
Brandishing machetes, RUF rebels amputated the hands, arms, and legs of tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans.
The RUF instituted a policy of cutting off the hands of captured soldiers to send the message: “You don't hold your weapon against your brother.”

18. RUF Amputations
The RUF also believed that amputees could no longer mine diamonds, which might be used to support government troops.
The election slogan at that time was that the people ‘had power in their hands,’ so the RUF would hack the hands off of thousands of civilians to prevent voting.
RUF members are also said to have practiced cannibalism.

19. Blood Diamonds
The U.N. experts estimated that the RUF was responsible for illegally exporting diamonds amounting to a total value of between $25 and $125 million each year. Much of that money was used to buy their weapons on the black market.

20. The Women Affected by War
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