The international use of child soldiers has seen incredible pressure over the past few years.  Children fighting as combatants are common in civil conflict areas but are also attributed to government-backed paramilitary organizations.  Many children who would be in elementary or junior high school in Canada are manipulated to use weapons and to take human life.

                The most susceptible children are orphans.  The SOS Children’s Village estimates that over two million children have been killed in conflict in just the past ten years, while an additional one million have been orphaned and six million have permanent physical disabilities^[1].  Children that are orphans live in absolute desperate poverty lacking most basic necessities.  These children have no family or guardian to look after them; this is why they are targets of handlers.  A common technique for the handlers of child soldiers is to use a method of bond building, making the child feel accepted into a group, then training the child to kill by making it a pleasurable experience by inducing drugs and prostitution.  In those important and early years of life the child develops into a reckless and dangerous individual.   

                A very important method for stopping the recruitment of child soldiers is to create safe environments for them to function.  The SOS Children’s Village is a fundamental organization in positive upbringing of orphaned and susceptible children.

               Matt is part of a newly established organization called the Beacon of Hope which will produce an event in 2009 with celebrities that are involved with Human Rights, with specific involvement in the child soldiers situation. The event hopes to raise money for great world relief organizations to continue their struggle against the use of child soldiers.

                In 1989, the United Nations passed an Article on the rights of the child that reads "State parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities." This protocol was not sufficient as it entitles the parties to take “feasible means” to prevent the use of child soldiers. 

                In 2002, the Optional Protocol^[2] was adopted and now reads "States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities". Non-state actors and guerrilla forces are forbidden from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose.”  This now limits rebel and guerrilla factions from recruiting children, but again, this is only a statement.  The real action in preventing child soldiers is primarily preventing conflict from occurring by helping countries maintain stable governments.

                There is still a divided approach when dealing with the actions of child soldiers after a conflict.  Is there a grey line in the definition of a child soldiers, should this be strictly set to the age of fifteen?  For example, three captured prisoners, who were believed to be under the age of fifteen at the time of capture, were released from Guantanamo to UNICEF programs for rehabilitation.  Some other militants, who are over the age of fifteen, are believed to have knowledgeable consent of their actions and eventually undergo trial for their actions.

References

[1] : SOS: Child Soldiers

[2]: Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights