About Child Soldiers

To bolster their ranks, rebel forces recruit or abduct adolescents, some under the age of ten, as soldiers. Besides having to fight, these children are used as decoys, porters, spies, and sex slaves.

International aid workers report that even when released, these children are often hard to rehabilitate and the children find it difficult to reenter society. Released child soldiers are often ostracized by their villages and families, who do not understand how they could have been coerced into fighting or into having sex with adult soldiers. It is particularly hard on female child soldiers who have been raped and may have produced children, as they are considered undesirable for marriage.

Recent News Links

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/5213996.stm

http://www.realtruth.org/news/080107-002-africa.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/record-numbers-of-child-
soldiers-drafted-into-congo-war-766748.html

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=21644&Cr=child&Cr1=soldier

http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/drcongo_35096.html

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1011-02.htm

http://web.amnesty.org/pages/childsoldiers-index-eng

http://blogs.ushmm.org/worldiswitness

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