Child Soldiers
We are here to talk to you about Child Soldiers. A child soldier is any girl or boy below the age of 18 who is recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity. A child soldier is not just someone who is involved in the fighting. They can also be those in other roles such as cooks, human shields, spies, suicide bombers, or those used for sexual exploitation. It includes children recruited and trained for military purposes, but not used in war.
There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers in the world today in at least 20 countries, mostly in the armed forces of Afghanistan and Myanmar. About 40% of those children are girls, who are often used as sex slaves and taken as “wives” by male fighters.
What is currently being done is the use of campaigns and projects to help to reduce the problem, which violates our most basic standards of human decency.
It may take a few years or decades to put an end to it since the exploitation of children as soldiers is a huge business. The militias use them to loot villages. Governments in war-affected regions save money because they don’t have to train and pay as many legitimate soldiers. That also means that they have little interest in effectively countering the use of child soldiers. Arms exporters and private military organizations also profit from the use of child soldiers.
Not only that, but state armed forces and armed groups outside government control recruit children. Non-state armed groups are more likely than states to use children in armed conflict. All that makes the problem more challenging to tackle, as these groups are less visible and harder to negotiate with.