"I would like you to give a message. Please do your best to tell the world what is happening to us, the children. So that other children don't have to pass through this violence."
What are Child Soldiers?
Child Soldiers have been around for centuries. Spartans as early as the 5th century BC were known to have taken children as young as seven and trained them in special “Academies” to become soldiers. However, how do you classify a child soldier?
Child Soldiers are generally considered children below the age of 18 who are a member of or attached to a government armed forces group and are forced to commit acts of violence. They take three distinct forms. Children who take part in hostilities (child soldiers), children who are used in support roles such as messengers, sexual slaves, spies and porters or children who are used for a political advantage such as human shields or in propaganda.
Universally, the use of child soldiers has been frowned upon as both unacceptable and abhorrent. Despite this, in the last ten years over two million children have been killed, over one million orphaned, over six million have been left seriously injured or permanently disabled and over 10 million have been diagnosed with psychological trauma.
Since the 1970’s, a number of organizations, such as Amnesty International, UNICEF and the Red Cross have been formed to end the use of children in armed conflicts. However, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers have reported that the use of children as soldiers is still evident in many countries worldwide.