Child soldiers around the world

According to the United Nations about 300,000 children, in 30 countries, ranging in age from ten to 17, are recruited or forced by governments and rebel groups to serve in combat. The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers estimates 120,000 are engaged in armed conflicts across Africa, primarily in Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan and Uganda.

Children are viewed as good-soldier material because they are less likely than adults to question orders and authority, their immaturity causes them to take extreme risks, they are easier to control and they make fearless fighters. According to a Democratic Republic of Congo rebel commander, children 'make good fighters because they are young and want to show off. They think it's all a game, so they're fearless'.

Initially child soldiers are used in such support roles as porters carrying ammunition and food, as messengers or spies. But as soon as they are big enough to carry a gun, they are used for combat; as guns get lighter, the children who use them are younger.

Child soldiers in Uganda

Uganda's northern districts of Gulu and Kitgum have been devastated by guerrilla war over the past 14 years. For eight of those years the fighting for control of this region has mainly been between two groups: the government's Uganda People's Defence Forces, and the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), led by Joseph Kony.

The war has caused the near disintegration of the economy and infrastructure in these areas. More than 400,000 civilians, 50 per cent of the population, have been moved to government "protective villages" where they live in appalling conditions without sufficient sanitation, housing, healthcare or food. Despite their name, these "villages" are not safe as residents remain vulnerable to attack and children in particular to systematic abductions by the rebel LRA.

Children, both inside and beyond these villages, are key targets for forced recruitment. Most of the boys and girls who are taken are between 12 and 16 years old, but there are cases where children as young as seven are abducted. All are trained as soldiers. They are taught how to march, how to use a gun and how to fight. It is estimated that 10,000 to 14,000 children have been abducted in northern Uganda and as many as 90 per cent of soldiers in the LRA are abducted children.

Most are taken across the Sudan border to LRA camps, where the insurgents are deployed against the Sudan People's Liberation Army. Controlled by a combination of threats, violence and drugs, they have no choice but to fight. If they attempt to escape, resist orders, or cannot keep up, or if they become ill they are killed. If they surrender or to flee, they are at risk of treason charges from the Ugandan Government.

The testimony of a boy who was abducted when he was 11 years old tells of the dangers of escape: 'The soldiers took me from school…They took me to the bush and made me carry rifles and other things - really heavy loads! Many boys died of hunger and thirst. Then they taught me how to shoot. One day, a boy tried to escape but they caught him. They ordered us to stand around him in a circle and beat him. If we did not beat him, they would beat us. They would kill us. So we beat him. Again and again until he died.'

Child soldiers are subject to physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Boys are used as soldiers for fighting, looting villages and abducting other children in Uganda or against the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in Sudan. Girls are mainly distributed to LRA soldiers as sex slaves (or "wives").

Concy A., a 14-year-old girl, was abducted by the LRA from Kitgum and taken to Sudan. 'In Sudan we were distributed to men and I was given to a man who had just killed his woman. I was not given a gun, but I helped in abductions and grabbing of food from villagers. Girls who refused to become LRA wives were killed in front of us to serve as a warning to the rest of us.'

Child soldiers, the law and recent developments

  • The international minimum for recruiting for the armed forces and participation in armed conflict is 15 years. But the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, agreed by a UN working group on 21 January 2000, set 18 as the minimum for soldiers as combatants. Uganda is not a signatory.
  • On 17 September 2000, the Sudan and Ugandan Governments signed a Joint Communiqué on Immediate Action on Abducted Children in Winnipeg, Canada. Under this the Sudan Government agreed to ensure abducted children's return and the Ugandan Government agreed to help facilitate it.
  • The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child sets the minimum recruitment and participation age in armed conflict at 18. Uganda has not signed.
  • The new International Criminal Court will treat the use of child soldiers under 15 as a war crime.
  • The International Labour Organisation Convention No. 182 on the worst forms of child labour prohibits the use of children as soldiers, defining the forced or compulsory recruitment of children under 18 for use in armed conflict as a practice similar to slavery.