Learn more about our Stop the War on Children campaign — and how you can help. By signing up to receive emails from Save the Children you will receive a subscription to our monthly eNews, access to breaking emergency alerts and opportunities to get involved. To ensure delivery of Save the Children emails to your inbox, add support savechildren. This includes more child soldiers , as well as those more likely to be killed or maimed, abducted, sexually abused, see their schools or hospitals attacked , or have aid denied to them.
Children in conflict are more at risk of harm now than at any time in recorded history. Learn the facts about child soldiers.
What is the definition of a child soldier? Why are children recruited and used as child soldiers? Being poor, displaced, separated from their families or living in a combat zone can make children particularly vulnerable to being recruited.
Armed groups target children for several reasons. Some children will be trained for and participate in armed combat, while others will be given a supporting role. In almost all cases child soldiers will not have access to formal education. A number of former child combatants from the Central African Republic have reported that they were forced to perform horrific acts, such as killing their own parents as a form of initiation into the armed group.
It is thought that this initiation hardens them to brutality and breaks the bonds with their community, making it difficult to return. Fifty countries still allow children to be recruited into armed forces, according to Child Soldiers International. Many non-state armed groups also recruit children. The UN Secretary-General's annual "name and shame" list for highlighted the armed forces of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for recruiting and using unders for armed conflict.
But non-state armed groups also recruit children in these and other countries. The report said there were at least verified violations by government forces and over 11, by non-state armed groups in the 20 country situations it examined. In the past two decades, thousands of boys and girls have been freed as a result of action plans mandated by the United Nations Security Council.
Launched in March , the campaign Children, Not Soldiers is working to galvanise support to end and prevent recruitment of children by national security forces in conflict. The UN Secretary-General's report on children and armed conflict said there had been several positive moves. That included armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the Philippines being delisted and the signing of a peace agreement in Colombia that included a special agreement on the release and reintegration of children.
Efforts are being made to support the release of children in these countries to civilian life and to help reintegrate them, as well as plans to prevent future recruitment of children. Measures are being taken around the world to prevent children becoming soldiers in the future. Between and , more than 93, children were verified as recruited and used by parties to conflict, although the actual number of cases is believed to be much higher.
Warring parties use children not only as fighters, but as scouts, cooks, porters, guards, messengers and more. Many, especially girls, are also subjected to gender-based violence. Children become part of an armed force or group for various reasons. Some are abducted, threatened, coerced or manipulated by armed actors. Others are driven by poverty, compelled to generate income for their families.
Still others associate themselves for survival or to protect their communities. No matter their involvement, the recruitment and use of children by armed forces is a grave violation of child rights and international humanitarian law. The recruitment and use of children by armed forces or armed groups is a grave violation of child rights and international humanitarian law.
While living among armed actors, children experience unconscionable forms of violence.
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