Children in the military, including state armed forces, non-state armed groups, and other military organizations, may be trained for combat, assigned to support roles, such as cooks, porters/couriers, or messengers, or used for tactical advantage such as for human shields, or for political advantage in propaganda.[1][2] Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures.[3]
Children are targeted for their susceptibility to influence, which renders them easier to recruit and control.[4][5][3][6] While some are recruited by force, others choose to join up, often to escape poverty or because they expect military life to offer a rite of passage to maturity.[3][7][8][9][10]
Child soldiers who survive armed conflict frequently develop psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioral problems such as heightened aggression, which together lead to an increased risk of unemployment and poverty in adulthood.[11] Research in the United Kingdom has found that the enlistment and training of adolescent children, even when they are not sent to war, is often accompanied by a higher risk of suicide,[12][13]stress-related mental disorders,[14][15]alcohol abuse,[16][17] and violent behavior.[18][19][20]
Since the 1960s, a number of treaties have successfully reduced the recruitment and use of children worldwide.[21] Nonetheless, around a quarter of armed forces worldwide, particularly those of third-world nations, still train adolescent children for military service,[22][23][24] while elsewhere, the use of children in armed conflict and insurgencies has increased in recent years.[22][25][26]
History is filled with children who have been trained and used for fighting, assigned to support roles such as porters or messengers, used as sex slaves, or recruited for tactical advantage as human shields or for political advantage in propaganda.[2][1][27] In 1813 and 1814, for example, Napoleon conscripted many young teenagers for his armies.[28] Thousands of children participated on all sides of the First and Second World Wars.[29][30][31][32] Children continued to be used throughout the 20th and early 21st century on every continent, with concentrations in parts of Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.[33] Only since the turn of the millennium have international efforts begun to limit and reduce the military use of children.[10][34]
Current situation
State armed forces
The adoption in 2000 of the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) committed states who ratified it to "take all feasible measures" to ensure that no child takes a direct part in hostilities and to cease recruitment below the age of 16.[35] As most states have now opted into OPAC, the global trend has been towards reserving military recruitment to adulthood, known as the Straight-18 standard.[21][35]
Nonetheless, as of 2018[update], children aged under 18 were still being recruited and trained for military purposes in 46 countries, which is approximately one quarter of all countries.[36] Most of these states recruit from age 17, fewer than 20 recruit from age 16, and an unknown, smaller number, recruit younger children.[21][22][37]
military training, the military environment, and a binding contract of service are not compatible with children's rights and jeopardize healthy development.[39][22][40][41]
Not all armed groups use children and approximately 60 have entered agreements to reduce or end the practice since 1999.
guerrilla movement in Colombia agreed to stop recruiting children.[26] Other countries have seen the reverse trend, particularly Afghanistan and Syria, where Islamist militants and groups opposing them have intensified their recruitment, training, and use of children.[26]
Global estimates
In 2003, one estimate calculated that child soldiers participated in about three-quarters of ongoing conflicts.
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) estimated that most of these children were aged over 15, although some were younger.[44]
Due to the widespread military use of children in areas where armed conflict and insecurity prevent access by UN officials and other observers, it is difficult to estimate how many children are affected.[45]
In 2003 UNICEF estimated that some 300,000 children are involved in more than 30 conflicts worldwide.[46]
In 2017, Child Soldiers International estimated that several tens of thousands of children, possibly more than 100,000, were in state- and non-state military organisations around the world,[45] and in 2018 the organisation reported that children were being used to participate in at least 18 armed conflicts.[36]
In 2023 the UN Secretary General report presented 7,622 verified cases of children being recruited and used in armed conflicts in 23 countries. More than 12,460 children formerly associated with armed forces or groups received protection or reintegration support during 2022.[47]
It is estimated that girl soldiers make between 10% and 30%,[48] 6 and 50%,[49]
or over 40% of the child soldier population.[50][51] Of the verified cases presented in the 2023 UN Secretary General report, girls make 12.3% of all child soldiers recruited or used by armed groups.[47]
Driving factors
Despite children's physical and psychological underdevelopment relative to adults, there are many reasons why state- and non-state military organisations seek them out, and why children themselves are often are drawn to join up of their own volition.
Psychological factors
Relative to adults, the neurological underdevelopment of children, including adolescent children, renders them more susceptible to recruitment and also more likely to make consequential decisions without due regard to the risks.[52][53][54][55]
With these susceptibilities in mind, military marketing to adolescents has been criticised in Germany,[56] the UK,[57][52] and the US[58] for glamorizing military life while omitting the risks and the loss of fundamental rights.
Research in the same three countries finds that recruiters disproportionately target children from poorer backgrounds.[8][59][60][57][61][58][62] In the UK, for example, the army finds it easier to attract child recruits from age 16 than adults from age 18,[8] particularly those from poorer backgrounds.[63][64]
Once recruited, children are easier than adults to indoctrinate and control,[4][5][3][6] and are more motivated than adults to fight for non-monetary incentives such as religion, honour, prestige, revenge, and duty.[65]
Social factors
In many countries growing populations of young people relative to older generations have made children a cheap and accessible resource for military organisations.[66] In a 2004 study of children in military organisations around the world, Rachel Brett and Irma Specht pointed to a complex of factors that incentivise children to join military organisations, particularly:
Background poverty including a lack of civilian education or employment opportunities.
The cultural normalization of war.
Seeking new friends.
Revenge (for example, after seeing friends and relatives killed).
The following testimony from a child recruited by the Cambodian armed forces in the 1990s is typical of many children's motivations for joining up:
I joined because my parents lacked food and I had no school... I was worried about mines but what can we do—it's an order [to go to the front line]. Once somebody stepped on a mine in front of me—he was wounded and died... I was with the radio at the time, about 60 metres away. I was sitting in my hammock and saw him die... I see young children in every unit... I'm sure I'll be a soldier for at least a couple of more years. If I stop being a soldier, I won't have a job to do because I don't have any skills. I don't know what I'll do...[67]
Military factors
Some leaders of armed groups have claimed that children, despite their underdevelopment, bring their own qualities as combatants to a fighting unit, often being remarkably fearless, agile and hardy.[68]
The global proliferation of light automatic weapons, which children can easily handle, has also made the use of children as direct combatants more viable.[69]
Impact on children
Further information:
Recruit training
Armed conflict
Child soldiers who survive armed conflict face a markedly elevated risk of debilitating psychiatric illness, poor literacy and numeracy, and behavioural problems.
post-traumatic stress disorder and nearly nine in ten in Uganda screened positive for depressed mood.[11] Researchers in Palestine also found that children exposed to high levels of violence in armed conflict were substantially more likely than other children to exhibit aggression and anti-social behaviour.[11] The combined impact of these effects typically includes a high risk of poverty and lasting unemployment in adulthood.[11]
Detention
Further harm is caused when armed forces and groups detain child recruits.[70] Children are often detained without sufficient food, medical care, or under other inhumane conditions, and some experience physical and sexual torture.[70] Some are captured with their families, or detained due to one of their family members' activity. Lawyers and relatives are frequently banned from any court hearing.[70]
Military training
While the use of children in armed conflict has attracted most attention, other research has found that military settings present several serious risks before child recruits are deployed to war zones, particularly during training.
Research from several countries finds that military enlistment, even before recruits are sent to war, is accompanied by a higher risk of attempted suicide in the US,[12] higher risk of mental disorders in the US and the UK,[14][15][71] higher risk of alcohol misuse[16][17][71] and higher risk of violent behaviour,[18][19][20][72][73] relative to recruits' pre-military experience.
Military academics in the US have characterized military training as "intense indoctrination" in conditions of sustained stress, the primary purpose of which is to establish the unconditional and immediate obedience of recruits.[6] The research literature has found that adolescents are more vulnerable than adults to a high-stress environment, particularly those from a background of childhood adversity.[55] It finds in particular that the prolonged stressors of military training are likely to aggravate pre-existing mental health problems and hamper healthy neurological development.[74][52]
Military settings are characterized by elevated rates of bullying, particularly by instructors. In the UK between 2014 and 2020, for example, the army recorded 62 formal complaints of violence committed by staff against recruits at the military training centre for 16- and 17-year-old trainee soldiers, the Army Foundation College.[75] Joe Turton, who joined up aged 17 in 2014, recalls bullying by staff throughout his training. For example:
The corporals come into the hangar where we sleep and they're wild-eyed, screaming, shoving people out. A massive sergeant lifts a recruit in the air and literally throws him into the wall. A corporal smacks me full-force around the head—I've got my helmet on but he hits me so hard that I'm knocked right over, I mean this man's about 40 and I'm maybe 17 by then. A bit later, we're crawling through mud and a corporal grabs me and drags me along the ground, half-way across a field. When he lets go I'm in that much pain that I'm whimpering on the ground. When the other corporal, the one who hit me, sees me crying on the ground, he just points at me and laughs.[76]
Elevated rates of sexual harassment are characteristic of military settings, including the training environment.[77][78][79][80] Between 2015 and 2020, for example, girls aged 16 or 17 in the British armed forces were twice as likely as their same-age civilian peers to report rape or other sexual assault.[81]
...any person below 18 years of age who is or 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. The document is approved by the United Nations General Assembly. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.[82]
Children aged under 15
Main articles:
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court
The Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions (1977, Art. 77.2),
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2002) all forbid state armed forces and non-state armed groups from using children under the age of 15 directly in armed conflict (technically "hostilities"). This is now recognised as a war crime.[84]
Most states with armed forces are also bound by the higher standards of the widely ratified Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) (2000) and the Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention (1999), which forbid the compulsory recruitment of those under the age of 18.[35][85] OPAC also requires governments that still recruit children (from age 16) to "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities". In addition, OPAC forbids non-state armed groups from recruiting children under any circumstances, although the legal force of this is uncertain.[86][25]
The highest standard in the world is set by the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child,[87] which forbids state armed forces from recruiting children under the age of 18 under any circumstances. Most African states have ratified the Charter.[87]
Limitations and loopholes
None of the above treaties either explicitly forbids the indirect participation of children in "hostilities", or from contributing to a military operation in a stand-off position (i.e. away from hostilities).
Standards for the release and reintegration of children
OPAC requires governments to demobilise children within their jurisdiction who have been recruited or used in hostilities and to provide assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration.[88] Under war, civil unrest, armed conflict and other emergency situations, children and youths are also offered protection under the United Nations Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict. To accommodate the proper disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of former members of armed groups, the United Nations started the Integrated DDR Standards in 2006.[89]
Opinion is currently divided over whether children should be prosecuted for war crimes.
Convention on the Rights of the Child limits the punishment that a child can receive: "Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offenses committed by persons below eighteen years of age."[90]
, including war crimes. However, the Paris Principles state that children who participate in armed conflict should be regarded first as victims, even if they may also be perpetrators:
... [those] who are accused of crimes under international law allegedly committed while they were associated with armed forces or armed groups should be considered primarily as victims of offenses against international law; not only as perpetrators. They must be treated by international law in a framework of restorative justice and social rehabilitation, consistent with international law which offers children special protection through numerous agreements and principles.[91]
This principle was reflected in the Court's statute, which did not rule out prosecution but emphasised the need to rehabilitate and reintegrate former child soldiers. David Crane, the first Chief Prosecutor of the Sierra Leone tribunal, interpreted the statute in favour of prosecuting those who had recruited children, rather than the children themselves, no matter how heinous the crimes they had committed.[90]
US forces.[92] These crimes carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment under US law.[90] In 2010, while under torture and duress, Khadr pleaded guilty to murder in violation of the laws of war, attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, conspiracy, two counts of providing material support for terrorism, and spying.[93][94] The plea was offered as part of a plea bargain, which would see Khadr deported to Canada after one year of imprisonment to serve seven further years there.[95] Omar Khadr remained in Guantanamo Bay and the Canadian government faced international criticism for delaying his repatriation.[96] Khadr was eventually transferred to the Canadian prison system in September 2012 and was freed on bail by a judge in Alberta in May 2015. As of 2016[update], Khadr was appealing his US conviction as a war criminal.[97]
Before sentencing the Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict wrote to the US military commission at Guantanamo appealing unsuccessfully for Khadr's release into a rehabilitation program.[98] In her letter she said that Khadr represented the "classic child soldier narrative: recruited by unscrupulous groups to undertake actions at the bidding of adults to fight battles they barely understand".[98]
Children's rights advocates were left frustrated after the final text of the convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) did not prohibit the military recruitment of all children under the age of 18, and they began to call for a new treaty to achieve this goal.[34][99] As a consequence the newly formed Committee on the Rights of the Child made two recommendations: first, to request a major UN study into the impact of armed conflict on children; and second, to establish a working group of the UN Commission on Human Rights to negotiate a supplementary protocol to the convention.[99] Both proposals were accepted.[34][99]
Responding to the committee on the Rights of the Child, the
UN General Assembly acknowledged "the grievous deterioration in the situation of children in many parts of the world as a result of armed conflicts" and commissioned the human rights expert Graça Machel to conduct a major fact-finding study.[100] Her report, Impact of Armed Conflict on Children (1996), was particularly concerned with the military use of younger children, which was killing, maiming, and psychiatrically injuring many thousands every year.[10]
It noted:
Clearly one of the most urgent priorities is to remove everyone under 18 years of age from armed forces.[10]
Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict
The Machel Report led to a new mandate for a Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (SRSG-CAAC).[100] Among the tasks of the SRSG is to draft the Secretary-General's annual report on children and armed conflict, which lists and describes the worst situations of child recruitment and use from around the world.[103]
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council convenes regularly to debate, receive reports, and pass resolutions under the heading "Children in armed conflict". The first resolution on the issue, Resolution 1261, was passed in 1999.[104] In 2004 Resolution 1539 was passed unanimously, condemning the use of child soldiers and mandating the UN Secretary-General to establish a means of tracking and reporting on the practice, known as the Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism.[105][106]
United Nations Secretary-General
The Secretary-General publishes an annual report on children and armed conflict.[107] As of 2017[update], his report identified 14 countries where children were widely used by armed groups during 2016 (Afghanistan, Colombia, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Mali, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) and six countries where state armed forces were using children in hostilities (Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and Syria).[26]
Children in the military today—by region and country
In 2003, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that up to half of children involved with state armed forces and non-state armed groups worldwide were in Africa.[44] In 2004, Child Soldiers International estimated that 100,000 children were being used in state and non-state armed forces on the continent;[108] and in 2008 an estimate put the total at 120,000 children, or 40 percent of the global total.[109]
The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (1990), which most African states have ratified, prohibits all military recruitment of children aged under 18. Nonetheless, according to the UN, in 2016 children were being used by armed groups in seven African countries (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan) and by state armed forces in three (Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan).[26]
International efforts to reduce the number of children in military organisations in Africa began with the Cape Town Principles and Best Practices, developed in 1997.[110] The Principles proposed that African governments commit to OPAC, which was being negotiated at the time, and raise the minimum age for military recruitment from 15 to 18.[110] The Principles also defined a child soldier to include any person under the age of 18 who is "part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or group in any capacity ... including girls recruited for sexual purposes..."[110]
In 2007, the Free Children from War conference in Paris produced the Paris Principles, which refined and updated the Cape Town Principles, applied them globally, and outlined a practical approach to reintegrating current child soldiers.[111]
The use of children by armed groups in the Central African Republic has historically been common.[108] Between 2012 and 2015 as many as 10,000 children were used by armed groups in the nationwide armed conflict and as of 2016[update] children were still being used.[112][26] The mainly Muslim Séléka coalition of armed groups and the predominantly Christian Anti-balaka militias have both used children in this way; some are as young as eight.[113]
In May 2015 at the Forum de Bangui (a meeting of government, parliament, armed groups, civil society, and religious leaders), a number of armed groups agreed to demobilize thousands of children.[114]
In 2016 a measure of stability returned to the Central African Republic and, according to the United Nations, 2,691 boys and 1,206 girls were officially separated from armed groups.[26] Despite this, the recruitment and use of children for military purposes increased by approximately 50 percent over that year, mostly attributed to the Lord's Resistance Army.[26]
Thousands of children serve in the military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and various rebel militias. It has been estimated that more than 30,000 children were fighting with various parties to the conflict at the height of the Second Congo War. It was claimed in the film Kony 2012 that the Lord's Resistance Army recruited this number.[115]
Currently, the DRC has one of the highest proportions of child soldiers in the world. The international court has passed judgment on these practices during the war.
Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo. The children were forced to fight in the armed conflict in Ituri.[116]
A report published by the Child Soldiers International in 2004 estimated that 200,000 children had been recruited into the country's militias against their will since 1991.[108] In 2017 UN Secretary-General António Guterres commented on a UN report which estimated that over 50 percent of Al-Shabaab's membership in the country was under the age of 18, with some as young as nine being sent to fight.[117] The report verified that 6,163 children had been recruited in Somalia between 1 April 2010 and 31 July 2016, of which 230 were girls. Al-Shabaab accounted for seventy percent of this recruitment, and the Somali National Army was also recruiting children.[117][118]