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The military use of children takes three distinct forms: children can take direct part in hostilities (child soldiers), or they can be used in support roles such as porters, spies, messengers, look outs, and sexual slaves; or they can be used for political advantage either as human shields or in propaganda.
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were supposedly against cultural morals. Since the 1970s a number of international conventions have come into effect that try to limit the participation of children in armed conflicts, nevertheless the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reports that the use of children in military forces, and the active participation of children in armed conflicts is widespread.
International law
International human rights law
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Art. 38, (1989) proclaimed: "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." The Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict to the Convention that came into force in 2002 stipulates that its State Parties "shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces".[1] The Optional Protocol further obligates states to "take all feasible measures to prevent such recruitment and use, including the adoption of legal measures necessary to prohibit and criminalize such practices." (Art 4, Optional Protocol)[2] Likewise under the Optional Protocol states are required to demobilize children within their jurisdiction who have been recruited or used in hostilities, and to provide assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration. (Art 6(3) Optional Protocol)[3]
Under Article 8.2.26 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), adopted in July 1998 and entered into force 1 July 2002, "Conscripting or enlisting children under the age of fifteen years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities" is a war crime.[4]
On July 26, 2005, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed UN Security Council Resolution 1612, the sixth in a series of resolutions about children and armed conflict.[5] Resolution 1612 established the first comprehensive monitoring and reporting system for enforcing compliance among those groups using child soldiers in armed conflict.[6]
International humanitarian law
Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which was adopted and signed in 2002, the use of anyone under the age of 18 in combat is illegal under international law. National armed forces are permitted to recruit individuals below the age of 18, but are strictly forbidden from deploying them into combat. Non-state actors and guerrilla forces are forbidden from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose.
This prohibition traces its roots to the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, adopted in 1977, which had set the age at 15 years old. Following the civil wars of the 1990s, especially in Sierra Leone, it was recognized that the age of 18 was the most widely recognized dividing line between childhood and adulthood. The International Criminal Court embodied this principle in the Rome Statute by refusing jurisdiction over anyone who committed crimes under the age of 18 and David Crane, Chief Prosecutor in Sierra Leone, additionally refused to prosecute anyone who had committed crimes as a child soldier under the age of 18.
International labour law
Forced or compulsory recruitment of anyone under the age of 18 for use in armed conflict, is one of the predefined worst forms of child labour, deemed a form of slavery, in terms of the International Labour Organisation's Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention, 1999, adopted in 1999.
In terms of the Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation ratifying countries should ensure that forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict is a criminal offence, and also provide for other criminal, civil or administrative remedies to ensure the effective enforcement of such national legislation (Article III(12) to (14)).
Movement to stop military use of children
Red Hand Day on 12 February is an annual commemoration day to draw public attention to the practice of using children as soldiers in wars and armed conflicts.
Recently, a strong international movement has emerged to put an end to the practice. See, for example, Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.
After the war, bringing children or former child soldiers into civil society is difficult, as they have received little education, are accustomed to the use of violence, and often the children have lost ties to their families.[dubious – discuss]
Child soldiers in the world today
According to the website of Human Rights Watch as of July 2007:
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In over twenty countries around the world, children are direct participants in war. Denied a childhood and often subjected to horrific violence, an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 children are serving as soldiers for both rebel groups and government forces in current armed conflicts.[7] |
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Under the terms of Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, children over the age of fifteen who have volunteered can be used as spotters, observers, message-carriers. (see above International humanitarian law)
In cases where children have taken part in combat, recruiting parties have active measures to counter their reluctance, such as forcing child recruits to commit brutalities and to take drugs like marijuana, amphetamines and "brown-brown" that inhibit guilt and fear. Propaganda, revenge and fear of being left alone influence children to "voluntarily" stay in the army. Children have been both participants in and victims of atrocities.[citation needed]
Africa
The Capetown Principles and Best Practices, adopted by the NGO Working Group on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and UNICEF at a symposium on the prevention of recruitment of children into the armed forces and on demobilization and social regeneration of child soldiers in Africa in April 1997, proposed that African Governments should adopt and ratify the Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict raising the minimum age from 15 to 18, and that African Governments should ratify and implement other pertinent treaties and incorporate them into national law. The symposium define a child soldier as any person under age 18 who is "part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or group in any capacity, including but not limited to cooks, porters, messengers and those accompanying such groups, other than purely as family members. The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. It does not, therefore, only refer to a child who is carrying or has carried arms."[8]
As of 2007, Africa has the largest number of child soldiers. In 2004 one estimate put the number of children involved in armed conflict including combat roles at 100,000.[9]
- Chad – Child soldiers are fighting with the Chadian Military, integrated rebel forces - the United Front for Democratic Change (Front Uni pour le Changement, FUC), local self-defense forces known as Tora Boro militias, and two Sudanese rebel movements operating in Chad - the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the G-19 faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA).[10][11]
- Cote d'Ivoire – Children serve in armed militia groups linked to the government, including the Alliance patriotique de l’ethnie Wé (APWé) and the Union patriotique de résistance du Grand Ouest (UPRGO). The ex-rebel groups now allied into the New Forces (Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire, FAFN) also had child soldiers.
- Rwanda – Child soldiers have been used by Rwandan government forces and paramilitaries, as well as government-backed forces operating within the Democratic Republic of Congo. Some child recruitment is still reported in refugee camps.
- Somalia – Nearly all factional militias in Somalia use child soldiers, with an estimated 200,000 children involved over a 16 year period. In late 2006, Islamic Courts Union used large numbers of child soldiers to fight against Ethiopian and Somalian forces, reportedly resulting in the death of "countless" teenage fighters.
- Uganda – Over the past twenty years, the rebel Lord's Resistance Army has abducted more than 30,000 boys and girls as soldiers. Girls are often forced to be sex slaves. The government has recruited small numbers of children into its forces as young as 13, including Local Defense Units.
- Zimbabwe - The ZANU-PF government of Robert Mugabe sponsors a "youth militia" -- the National Youth Service, known as the "Green Bombers". The children are armed, provided with narcotics, and used for acts of urban violence against political dissidents. They are believed responsible for some of the worst acts of political violence in recent history.[12]
See interactive Map of Child Soldiers
Asia
In 2004 the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reported that in Asia thousands of children are involved in fighting forces in active conflict and ceasefire situations in Afghanistan, Burma, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Nepal and Sri Lanka, although government refusal of access to conflict zones has made it impossible to document the numbers involved.[13] In 2004 Burma was unique in the region, as the only country where government armed forces forcibly recruit and use children between the ages of 12 and 16.[13]
- Burma - As many as 70,000 boys serve in Burma's national army, with children as young as 12 forcibly recruited off the streets. Approximately 5,000-7,000 children serve with a range of different armed ethnic opposition groups.[14]
- Laos - Males are subject to compulsory military service from the age of 15.
- Nepal - An estimated 6,000-9,000 children serve in the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) forces. Although a peace agreement is in place, the Maoists have not yet demobilized children from their ranks.[15]
- The Philippines - Children are recruited by rebel forces, including the New People's Army, Abu Sayyaf Group, and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). An estimated 13 percent of the 10,000 soldiers in the MILF are children. Child recruitment is also reported by some paramilitary forces linked to the government.[16]
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In Sri Lanka, thousands of children are believed to be in the ranks of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE),[17] a rebel group banned as a terrorist organization by a number of countries. Since signing a ceasefire agreement in 2001, the latest available UNICEF figures show that the LTTE has abducted 5,666 children until July 2006, although the organization speculates that only about a third of such cases are reported to them. Sri Lankan soldiers nicknamed one unit the Baby Battalion, due to the number of children in it.[7] In response to widespread international condemnation of alleged children recruitment practices, the LTTE informed that they have made (taking effect in Oct. 2006) child recruitment illegal for its groups.[17]
More recently, the para-military group known as the Karuna Group, which is apparently a splinter group from the LTTE, has been held responsible for the abduction of children according to UNICEF and Human Rights Watch.[18]
Middle East: Palestine
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Child soldiers are also being used by Palestinians in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On May 23, 2005, Amnesty International reiterated its calls to Palestinian armed groups to put an immediate end to the use of children in armed activities: "Palestinian armed groups must not use children under any circumstances to carry out armed attacks or to transport weapons or other material."[19]
Professor of Georgetown University William O'Brien wrote about active participation of Palestinian children in the First Intifada: "It appears that a substantial number, if not the majority, of troops of the intifada are young people, including elementary schoolchildren. They are engaged in throwing stones and Molotov cocktails and other forms of violence." (Law and Morality in Israel's War With the PLO, New York
Arab journalist Huda Al-Hussein wrote in London Arab newspaper on October 27, 2000: "While UN organizations save child-soldiers, especially in Africa, from the control of militia leaders who hurl them into the furnace of gang-fighting, some Palestinian leaders… consciously issue orders with the purpose of ending their childhood, even if it means their last breath."[20]
Palestinians and their proponents strongly deny that the practice is either widespread or planned. According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers 2004 Global Report on the Use of Child Soldiers, there were at least nine documented suicide attacks involving Palestinian minors between October 2000 and March 2004:[21] but also stated "There was no evidence of systematic recruitment of children by Palestinian armed groups. However, children are used as messengers and couriers, and in some cases as fighters and suicide bombers in attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. All the main political groups involve children in this way, including Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine."[22]
Recruitment of children to fight as soldiers against the Jews has been documented http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?next=true&aid=7991] in Palestinian school textbooks and the photographic record of Palestinian recruitment of children as soldiers, marching and training often with real machine guns, by the website project "InHonor.net" [8] [9] http://www.nakedterror.net/galleries/displayimage.php?album=5&pos=55]. Recruitment also exists in the content of Palestinian children's television programming. [10] [11] [12] [13]
Europe
- Chechnya - According to the UN report, the Chechen separatist forces included a large number of children, some as young as 11 (including females), during the First Chechen War: "Child soldiers in Chechnya were reportedly assigned the same tasks as adult combatants, and served on the front lines soon after joining the armed forces."[14] In 2004 the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers reported that in Chechnya, under-18s are believed to be involved in a range of armed groups in the war against Russia, although the numbers are impossible to establish given a virtual ban on media and human rights organizations from operating in the region. Some children allegedly took part in suicide bombings.[23]
- Bosnia and Herzegovina - Both sexes can voluntarily join the armed forces from the age of 17. Teenage soldiers fought in the Bosnian War in the early 1990s, partially due to a former law that dropped the conscription age to 16 in times of war.
- Serbia - In times of war, the compulsory military service age can be dropped to 16 for both sexes. Teenage soldiers and paramilitary fighters fought in the wars during the breakup of Yugoslavia.
- United Kingdom - The minimum age to join the British Army is 16 and a half; parental permission is required for those under the age of 18. Approximately forty percent of Britain's military forces joined when they were 16 or 17 years of age.[24] The UK adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on the involvement of children in armed conflict on 24 June 2003. The Convention calls on ratifying governments to do everything feasible to ensure that members of their armed forces who are under 18 years of age do not take part in hostilities, however between June 2003 and July 2005, the British government inadvertently sent fifteen 17-year-old soldiers to Iraq, explaining the mistake as due to "the pressures on units prior to deployment".[25]
North America
- Canada - In Canada, people may join the reserve component of the Canadian Forces at age 16 with parental permission, and the regular component at 17 years of age. They may not volunteer for a tour of duty until reaching age 18.[26]. In the celebrated case of Omar Khadr however, Canada has consented to a Canadian child soldier (Khadr was 15 when he was captured on the battlefield in Afghanistan) being interned at Guantanamo Bay and facing prosecution by the United States, in violation of international law.
- United States - In the United States 17-year-olds may join the armed forces, but may not be deployed in combat situations. The United States military is based on voluntary recruitment, though minors also must have parental permission to enlist (or permission from a legal guardian in the absence of parents). Males under eighteen years of age are not draft eligible, and females are not eligible for conscription at any age. The United States military requires all soldiers to possess a high school diploma or equivalent; this requirement may be waived for young soldiers for up to 180 days from the date of enlistment (with the agreement that the child obtains a high school diploma or equivalent within 180 days) and during wartime.
The United States has recently come under fire for the detention and trial of child soldiers and non-combatant minors captured during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Omar Khadr, a 15 year old Canadian citizen, arrested in Afghanistan in 2002, and held at Guantanamo for the past five years was to have been one of the first detainees to be charged before a military commission. Human Rights Watch charges that, "the US government incarcerated him with adults, reportedly subjected him to abusive interrogations, failed to provide him any educational opportunities, and denied him any direct contact with his family."[27] In 2004, three Afghan children were released from Guantanamo, believed to be between the ages of 13 and 15 at the time of their capture, to rehabilitation programs operated by UNICEF in Afghanistan.
Latin America
- Bolivia - The government of Bolivia has acknowledged that children as young as 14 may have been forcibly conscripted into the armed forces during recruitment sweeps.[28] About 40% of the Bolivian army is believed to be under the age of 18, with half of those below the age of 16.[29]
- Colombia - Between 11,000 and 14,000 children are estimated to be involved with left-wing guerrilla groups and right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia. According to Human Rights Watch, "Approximately 80 percent of child combatants in Colombia belong to one of the two left-wing guerrilla groups, the FARC or ELN. The remainder fights in paramilitary ranks."[30]
- Cuba - Members from both sexes are conscripted at age 17 to serve two years in the armed forces (mainly the paramilitary Youth Labor Army).
- Haiti - In Haiti an unknown number of children participate in various loosely-organized armed groups that are engaged in political violence.[31]
History
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were supposedly against cultural morals.
The earliest mentions of minors being involved in wars come from antiquity. It was customary for youths in the Mediterranean basin to serve as aides, charioteers and armor bearers to adult warriors. Examples of this practice can be found in the Bible (such as David's service to King Saul), in Hittite and Egyptian art, and in Greek mythology (such as the story of Hercules and Hylas), philosophy and literature.
Also in a practice dating back to antiquity, children were routinely taken on campaign, together with the rest of a military man's family, as part of the baggage. This exposed them to harm from rearguard attacks, such as the one at the battle of Agincourt, where the retainers and children of the English army were massacred by the French.
The Romans also made use of youths in war, though it was understood that it was unwise and cruel to use children in war, and Plutarch implies that regulations required youths to be at least sixteen years of age.
In medieval Europe, young boys from about twelve years of age were used as military aides ("squires"), though in theory their role in actual combat was limited. The so-called Children's Crusade in 1212 recruited thousands of children as untrained soldiers under the assumption that divine power would enable them to conquer the enemy, although none of the children actually entered combat; according to the legend, they were instead sold into slavery. While most scholars no longer believe that the Children's Crusade consisted solely, or even mostly, of children, it nonetheless exemplifies an era in which the entire family took part in a war effort.
Young boys often took part in battles during early modern warfare. One of their more visible roles was as the ubiquitous "drummer boy" – the film Waterloo (based on the Battle of Waterloo) graphically depicts French drummer boys leading Napoleon's initial attack, only to be gunned down by Allied soldiers. During the age of sail, young boys formed part of the crew of British Royal Navy ships and were responsible for many important tasks including bringing powder and shot from the ship's magazine to the gun crews. These children were called "powder monkeys". During the Siege of Mafeking in the Second Boer War, Robert Baden-Powell recruited and trained 12-15 year old boys as scouts, thus freeing up the limited number of men for the actual fighting. The boys' success led indirectly to Baden-Powell founding the Boy Scouts, a youth organization originally run along military lines. At the outbreak of the First World War, boys as young as 13 were caught up in the overwhelming tide of patriotism and in huge numbers cheerfully enlisted for active service others to avoid the harsh and dreary lives they had working in British industry. Many were to serve in the bloodiest battles of the war, such as ex-miner Dick Trafford who took part in the Battle of Loos, and Frank Lindley who, seeking to avenge his dead brother, went over the top on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Both were just sixteen. Typically many were able to pass themselves off as older men, such as George Thomas Paget, who at 17 joined a Bantam battalion in the Welsh Regiment. George died of wounds in captivity just five weeks after landing in France. George Mahers who served briefly in France when he was just thirteen years and nine months old. He was sent back to England along with five other under-age boys.
A young boy, Bugler John Cook, served in the U.S. Army at the age of 15 and received the Medal of Honor for his acts during the Civil War Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day in American history. Cook is the only child to ever receive this honor.[32]
By a law signed by Nicholas I of Russia in 1827, a disproportionate number of Jewish boys, known as the cantonists, were forced into military training establishments to serve in the army. The 25-year conscription term officially commenced at the age of 18, but boys as young as eight were routinely taken to fulfill the hard quota.
World War II
In World War II, children frequently fought in insurrections. During the Holocaust, Jews of all ages, including teenagers such as Shalom Yoran, participated in the Jewish resistance simply in order to survive. Many members of the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Many other anti-fascist resistance movements across Nazi-occupied Europe consisted partially of children (for example, Szare Szeregi in Poland). A number of child soldiers served in the Soviet Union's armed forces during the war.[33] In some cases, orphans also unofficially joined the Soviet Red Army. Such children were affectionately known as "son of the regiment" (Russian: сын полка) and sometimes willingly performed military missions such as reconnaissance.
On the opposite side, Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend) was an organization in Nazi Germany that trained youth physically and indoctrinated them with Nazi ideology to the point of fanaticism. By the end of World War II, members of the Hitler Youth were taken into the army at increasingly younger ages. During the Battle of Berlin in 1945 they were a major part of the German defenses.
In some cases, youth organizations were, and still are, militarized in order to instill discipline in their ranks, sometimes to indoctrinate them with propaganda and prepare for subsequent military service.
Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos
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Main article: Indochina Wars
During the Indochina Wars, child soldiers were used by all local sides of the conflict. Both the government forces and the insurgent armies employed even small children, including in the direct combat roles.
In the most notorious case, the Khmer Rouge communist group exploited thousands of desensitized conscripted children to commit mass murders and other inhuman acts during the Cambodian genocide. The brainwashed child soldiers were taught to follow any order without hesitation.[15]
Sierra Leone
Thousands of children were recruited and used by all sides during Sierra Leone’s conflict (1993-2002), including the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), and the pro-government Civil Defense Forces (CDF). Children were often forcibly recruited, given drugs and used to commit atrocities. Thousands of girls were also recruited as soldiers and often subjected to sexual exploitation. Many of the children were survivors of village attacks, while others were found abandoned. They were used for patrol purposes, attacking villages, and guarding workers in the diamond fields. In his book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Child Soldier, Ishmael Beah chronicles his life during the conflict in Sierra Leone.
In June 2007, the Special Court for Sierra Leone found three accused men from the rebel Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, including the recruitment of children under the age of 15 years into the armed forces. With this, the Special Court became the first-ever UN backed tribunal to deliver a guilty verdict for the military conscription of children.[34]
Iran and Iraq
During the later stages of the Iran-Iraq War, both sides were accused of using adolescents to fill out the ranks of soldiers depleted by years of warfare. Large numbers of adolescents fought alongside adults in the ranks of the Iranian Basij militia. On Iraqi side, the regime of Saddam Hussein raised teenage paramilitary units called "Saddam's Cubs" (Ashbal Saddam), and recruited children as young as 10.
See also
References
- ^ Adoption by the UN General Assembly of a new treaty prohibiting the use of children under age eighteen in combat Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, New York, May 25, 2000
- ^ UNICEF: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
- ^ UNICEF: Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
- ^ Wikisource:Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court#Article 8 - War crimes
- ^ Children and Armed Conflict: International Law/United Nations by the Center for Defence Information
- ^ Children and Armed Conflict: UN enters “era of application” in its campaign against child soldiers, Center for Defence Information October 12, 2005
- ^ Staff. Campaign Page: Child Soldiers, Human Rights Watch.
- ^ [1] UNICEF, Cape Town Principles and Best Practices, April 1997, p. 8
- ^ Some Facts
- ^ [2] "They Came Here to Kill Us" Human Rights Watch, January 2007
- ^ [3] "Early To War" Human Rights Watch, July 2007
- ^ United States Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs. Zimbabwe Public Announcement (July 12, 2007) (html). Retrieved on 2007-08-08.
- ^ a b
- ^ [4] "My Gun Was As Tall As Me", Human Rights Watch, 2002.
- ^ [5] "Nepal: Maoists Should Release Child Soldiers Now", Human Rights Watch, May 2007.
- ^ [6] Human Rights Watch Interactive Map of Child Soldiers
- ^ a b Bureau Report LTTE rebels make child recruitment illegal: Report, Zee News October 27, 2006
- ^ UNICEF condemns abduction and recruitment of Sri Lankan children by the Karuna group, UNICEF 22 June 2006
- ^ Israel/Occupied Territories: Palestinian armed groups must not use children 23 May 2005
- ^ Arab Journalist Decries Palestinian Child-Soldiers translated by MEMRI. Special Dispatch 147, November 1, 2000.
- ^ Child Soldiers Global Report 2004PDF (2.29 MiB) Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers p. 292
- ^ Child Soldiers Global Report 2004PDF (2.29 MiB) Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers p. 304 cites in footnote 18 that this Information is from Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group (PHRMG), March 2004.
- ^ Child Soldiers Global Report 2004PDF (2.29 MiB) Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers p. 217
- ^ Human Rights Watch: Promises Broken
- ^ Under-18s were deployed to Iraq, BBC
- ^ Basic Eligibility Requirements. Canadian Forces. Retrieved on 2007-09-02.
- ^ US: Move Khadr and Hamdan Cases to Federal Court. Human Rights Watch. Retrieved on 2007-07-26.
- ^ Global March Against Child Labour: Bolivia 2001
- ^ Global March Against Child Labour: Bolivia 2001
- ^ Colombia: Armed Groups Send Children to War Human Rights News a website of Human Rights Watch February 22, 2005
- ^ Human Rights Watch: Child Soldier Map
- ^ Slinger, P.W. Children At War. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005.13.
- ^ Beevor, Anthony; Kinnunen, Matti (2003). Stalingrad (in Finnish). Helsinki: WSOY.
- ^ "Guilty Verdicts in the Trial of the AFRC Accused"PDF (104 KiB), press release from the Special Court for Sierra Leone, 20 June 2007; "Sierra Leone Convicts 3 of War Crimes", Associated Press, 20 June 2007 (hosted by The Washington Post); "First S Leone war crimes verdicts", BBC News, 20 June 2007
Further reading
es:Uso militar de niños eo:Infansoldato fr:Enfant soldat ko:소년병 it:Bambini soldato he:שימוש צבאי בילדים ובנערים nl:Kindsoldaat ja:少年兵 pl:Dzieci-żołnierze fi:Lapsisotilas sv:Barnsoldat wa:Efant sôdård
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