Counter Terror Gazette

Child’s Play: an overview of children in militancy

17 Aug 2010

Throughout history, armies have used children to fight their battles and this continues in some countries to this day.  

In 2007, Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported that an estimated 200,000-300,000 children were serving as soldiers for both governments and militant groups around the world. Although the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs stated in 2003 that most children serving as soldiers or militants are over the age of 15, but are under 18, many are far younger than this.  A historical example is Iran, where during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-88), boys as young as 12 were enlisted into the army.

The issue of under-15s being recruited into a sovereign state’s army is one thing; even more controversial is the issue of child members of militant / terrorist groups.   The most reported examples of child militants – of both genders – in both groups best described as terrorist organisations and those often designated as rebel groups, come from Uganda, Sri Lanka, Palestine and Colombia.  Thus this form of organised mass child abuse can be found in every corner of the globe. 

Children are recruited into militancy, often by force or coercion, or after their parents have been killed by the militant group, to provide cheap, easy to influence combatants for a group’s missions.  Girls in particular are often also used as sex slaves and as domestic labour.  Children can be used as decoys against unsuspecting security forces and used as human shields; can access certain areas more easily as they invite less suspicion and are smaller and more agile so can more easily enter secure sites; they do not demand wages, need as much food, and may be more easy to coerce into dangerous acts as they may not have a good understanding of their own mortality…MORE ONLINE