The use of children in military actions

The use of children in military actions dates back to the Middle Ages. More recently, the children were used during the Civil War in the United States of America, and then in the Second World War. Since then, it has become practical to use everyday. Enlist children has considerable advantages: they cost less and eat an adult, are docile, easily controlled and influenced; are the bravest of adults (especially under the influence of drugs), are often used for kamikaze missions such as espionage or actions. The increasing use of children in armed conflict has led to the war industry to develop and produce more than 875 million small arms within the reach of very young children.

Children living in war zones are the first victims of the perpetrators who often have their own age, those that the United Nations defines "persons under 18 years of age, who are part of any armed force or armed group, adjust or irregular that it is, for any reason (including fighters, cooks, porters, messengers and anyone accompanying such groups.) The definition includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and for forced marriage. " There are no reliable data, accurate to the UN, the number of children associated with armed forces, but it has 250,000, while NGOs involved in the protection of children's rights and not only - Coopi among others - argue that there are currently well over 300,000.

IRIN, the humanitarian news agency of the UN, reveals an alarming fact: about 40% of child soldiers are girls and girls. Generally, girls also 5-6 years old, are abducted and exploited in various ways: to cook or collect firewood and water for the guerrillas; reached puberty, are forced to sexual performance, with the risk of premature pregnancies and contracting sexually transmitted diseases. In war, they are not only used as slaves, but also as combatants and spies. It is this complexity of roles that makes it even more difficult rehabilitation when they can and when they can, to get out.

Children generally used in war are illiterate. They are forced against their will to follow the government or rebel armies. However occurring also cases of voluntary enlistment for children who have lost everything, or in the case of ethnically homogeneous groups that enlist becomes a duty. After the capture of the "warlords" train the little ones, first tasks with easy to implement (water transport, ammunition, food), and then teach them to shoot. Children are subjected to heavy torture, after which their will is totally subservient to the military. Often they are also forced to kill members of their family and their community.

How do you become child soldiers: Even girls are illiterate and once free, are confused about their experiences, their sense of guilt, to the expectations of their families. Many are mothers of children had by their captors. It creates a disruption, a lack of unique references which makes it particularly complicated life after prison. The membership of an armed force can last a few days, followed by a leak or an issue, but despite the short time you can have severe trauma as a result of physical abuse they suffered. In any case, male or female, if they manage to get out of fighting groups face a double risk: that of being recognized as deserters from the rebels and to be lynched by the communities to which they belong in the memory of the atrocities caused.

The actual data on the number, recruitment and use of child soldiers are virtually impossible to find. A thorough study of SOS Children's Village, however, look to give a picture of the situation. There are over 14 million refugees worldwide, of which more than 40% under the age of 18, and 25 million people displaced by conflict, of which over 36% are minors. The children forcibly recruited usually come from these groups at risk: street children, rural children, refugees and other exiles. Those who choose to enlist voluntarily come often from the same groups.

Surrounded by violence, they feel more secure in a group and fighting with a weapon in the hands of these children. In Africa, for example, 80% of child soldiers has witnessed an armed action around their own home, 70% have seen their homes destroyed, 60% have lost family in the war. Many have direct experience or were eyewitnesses to massacres, summary executions, torture, sexual violence. Often the child soldiers survived the extermination of their own family.

The UNICEF data on the number of children who died in the Syrian conflict are still in July 2013. Were not counted those of August and even those of the past few days, but until then had olre 6500, a third of whom were younger than 10 years, tens of thousands injured, about 850,000 refugees. "The Syrian children are used as combatants, messengers, and aims to 'internal', such as cooking, cleaning, bring water or provide medical assistance to the wounded in support of the various parties to the conflict - says Andrea Iacomini, a spokesman for Unicef ​​Italy - According to a recent report of the UN Secretary General, the Syrian armed forces have used children as human shields. There have also been a number of allegations of employment of children between 15 and 17 years of Shabiha (militia affiliated to the government) in raids in villages, where heavy fighting is going on. "

The Middle East shaken by tensions and regional conflicts, where children have become an integral part of conflict. They are involved in the fighting of Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Tajikistan, Yemen. Those under 15 years old, usually employed in radical Islamic groups.

Sierra Leone is at the heart of human rights violation that relates to child soldiers: a 10-year civil war, minors in combat have had a major role. In Angola, 36% of children served as a soldier or followed the troops in combat. The United Nations estimates that the war in Liberia have fought about 20,000 children, 70% of active soldiers in the various factions and the LRA, the Lord's Resistance Army, is known to be composed of 100% by child soldiers, having abducted more than 15,000 children as soldiers and had in its ranks the youngest fighter armed in the world: a child of 5 years. Sudan is also widespread use of child soldiers. The estimates speak of at least 100,000 children, serving on both sides of a long civil war 20 years. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the various militias that vie for control of the mines of gold, diamonds and coltan, used child soldiers for decades to feed its ranks of fighters.

In South America, starting in the 90s, child soldiers have been used in Colombia, Ecuador, El Slavador, Guatemala, Mexico (Chiapas), Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru. The practice of child soldiers is widespread in Asia: Cambodia, East Timor, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka. Only in Myanmar is estimated there are more than 75,000 - one of the highest numbers in the world - active both in the army and in the government ethnic armed groups that oppose the regime. 80% of the conflicts in which children take part, they see in their own file fighters under the age of 15.

Based on the rules of the Millennium Development Goals drawn up by the UN, the use of children in armed conflict disobeys at least 3 of these rules. First of all, the child soldier is cut off from school; as well as does not have access to health care and exposed to the risk of life. Another international body, which attempts to protect children in armed conflict, is the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child: that, since 2000, has raised the minimum age for direct participation in the fighting to fire from 15 to 18 years and prohibits the conscription or forced recruitment under the age of 18 years. And again, the statute of the International Criminal Court since 1998 ranks as the recruitment war crime under the age of 15 in armed forces. Finally, the ILO Convention No. 182 of 1999 (International Labour Organization) defines forced or compulsory recruitment of children one of the "worst forms of child labor" and prohibits