CHILD SOLDIERS - A PERSISTENT OUTRAGE

It is not terribly difficult to uncover disturbing feature articles in our news coverage these days. A recently published Associated Press op-ed by Sam Mednick, highlighting the chronic, but rarely publicized, unsettling subject of child combatants, as manifested in Burkina Faso, West Africa, stood out. His story poignantly summarized the experience of a 43 year-old mother who fortunately survived an attack by kids, trained to be assassins, during which 160 of her neighbors were killed. Fundamentally, the narrative exposed a subject matter that has been around, unabated, for centuries. Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been involved in military campaigns. For much of the time these entanglements were unregulated. The U.N., in the "Convention on The Rights of the Child" (CRC) made an attempt at establishing parameters by defining this group to be composed of young people under the age of 18, while the "International Criminal Court" declared that the recruitment or use of children under 15 was considered a war crime. Nevertheless, most warring parties took little notice. For a significant number of armed forces involved in combat, the temptation to recruit, abduct, and train under-aged fighters appear irresistible. Recruiters target children from troubled areas or conflict zones, who are accustomed to violence, and who have few educational or work opportunities. Child soldiers come cheap. They are more easily manipulated when forced into combat, and who, ultimately, are considered expendable. Besides being used as fighters, they become informants, looters, messengers, spies, cooks, sex slaves, and may end up employed to clear mine fields or are forced to become suicide bombers. Not all inductees are involuntary participants. Many are attempting to escape from grim socioeconomic conditions at home. To some, joining active military forces is considered to be a rite of passage into adulthood. Others are searching for identity, expressing the need to belong to something resembling a family. And there are those who seek refuge or who are looking for revenge after seeing friends and family killed. And there always are a few who feel compelled to go to war to show loyalty to a new country they immigrated into. Some observers readily dismiss the topic of child soldiers as an outgrowth of persistent post-colonial conflicts across many parts of Africa. And, indeed, a 2003 U.N. study concluded that up to half of all children involved with armed forces world-wide came from Africa. This amounted to an estimated 100,000 children in 2004, and grew to 120,000 four years later. Today, most of these are found predominantly in the Central African Republic, the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. However, it is not just an African problem. The use of child soldiers is far more widespread than the scant attention it typically receives. Statistics produced by the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in 2005 concluded that 23% of armed organizations in the world (84 out of a total of 366) use children age 15 and under in combat roles. Eighteen percent of the total (64 of 366) use children 12 and under. There is no reason to believe that these totals have changed significantly since. A U.N. report published in June 2020 summarized that there were still an estimated 250,000child soldiers employed in 20 countries world-wide, while, according to "Child Soldiers International," 50 countries still allow children to be recruited into armed forces. Although Africa may still be considered to be the epicenter of half the problem, the Americas (Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador and others), Europe (Chechnya, Kosovo, Macedonia, and the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey), the Middle East and Central Asia (Sudan, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria) and Asia - (especially Myanmar, where more than 75,000 child soldiers - 20% of its total recruits - are under 15) make up the other half. (P.W. Singer, "The New Faces of War," AFT, Winter 2005-2006). This is, of course, nothing new. During the American Civil War, between 250,000 and 420,000 males under the age of 18 were involved in the fighting. An estimated 100,000 Union soldiers were 15 years old or younger. As many as 250,000 boys under the age of 18 served in the British army during World War I. (Recruitment officers were paid two shillings and sixpence for each new recruit and were not terribly scrupulous when signing up under-aged children.) Towards the end of World War II, Nazi Germany removed huge numbers of youths from schools and sent them out on what were essentially suicide missions. And children as young as 8 years old were reportedly captured by American troops as the fighting came to a close. The Japanese imperial army mobilized students aged 14-17, and ordered schools to force almost all students to "volunteer" to become soldiers.The numbers are all over the place. While doing the research you are readily overwhelmed by letters home written by very young soldiers who were rapidly stripped of their illusions of adventure and the glory of battle. Decades ago, Graca Machel, former First Lady of South Africa and wife of Nelson Mandela, in her function as "Special Expert" for the U.N. on this topic, summed up the outrage this appalling condition deserves to generate as follows: "These statistics are shocking enough, but more chilling is the conclusion to be drawn from them: more and more of the world is being sucked into a desolate moral vacuum, This is a space devoid of the most basic human values; a space in which children are slaughtered, raped, and maimed; a space in which children are exploited as soldiers; a space in which children are starved and exposed to extreme brutality. Such unregulated terror and violence speak of deliberate victimization. There are few further depths to which humanity can sink." Theo Wierdsma