Recruiting or using child soldiers

Children are uniquely vulnerable to military recruitment and manipulation into violence because they are innocent and impressionable. They are forced or enticed to join armed groups. Regardless of how they are recruited, child soldiers are victims, whose participation in conflict bears serious implications for their physical and emotional well-being. They are commonly subject to abuse and most of them witness death, killing, and sexual violence. Many participate in killings and most suffer serious long-term psychological consequences.

Evidence indicates that the recruitment and use of children has become the means of choice of many armed groups for waging war. At root there are numerous and often interrelated factors that drive the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Fighting groups have developed brutal and sophisticated techniques to separate and isolate children from their communities. Children are often terrorized into obedience, consistently made to fear for their lives and well-being. They quickly recognize that absolute obedience is the only means to ensure survival. Sometimes they are compelled to participate in the killing of other children or family members, because it is understood by these groups that there is "no way back home" for children after they have committed such crimes.

The considerable challenges in healing and reintegrating children into their communities in the aftermath of conflict is sometimes further compounded by severe addiction and dependency of children to hard drugs such as cocaine. In Sierra Leone, for instance, a volatile mixture of cocaine and gunpowder was often given to children to make them fearless in battle. And, because children are now also the instruments of brutality, sometimes committing the very worst atrocities, reintegration is often a complex process of community healing and atonement, and negotiation with families to accept their children back. All these dimensions of the experience of child combatants carry significant implications and challenges in terms of design and resources needs for psychosocial and other reintegration programming. The Paris Commitments and the Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated With Armed Forces or Armed Groups provide guidelines on the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of all categories of children associated with armed groups.

For more information, please visit the website of The Coalition to Stop The Use of Child Soldiers and the UNICEF website.