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Casualties of War

The Growing Phenomenon of the Modern-Day Child Soldier

by Mark DeYoung

The day Paul Makwek was released from the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) he ran into the bush, pulled out a knife and carved the date into his arm. It was the end of the civil war between north and south Sudan, and Paul was ecstatic to be free after two years of service. "I was so happy I had to do something," he says. “[I bled profusely], but I didn't feel pain. I knew this was it. It was the day I could begin to feel normal again." Paul was 14 years old. He started his military service when he was kidnapped by SPLA troops on the playground of his primary school.

Unfortunately, Paul’s story is not unique. According to most human rights organizations and international agencies, there are over 300,000 children actively participating in violent conflicts in 41 countries, and over a half a million have been recruited in 87 countries. While these numbers are hard to verify (due to forceful abduction of children by rebel groups that operate off the grid), there is general agreement that child soldiering is a large, escalating global problem.

Uganda’s rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has gained significant notoriety for its use of child soldiers. The Ugandan government estimates that 2 million children have been killed in the last two decades, and three times as many have been seriously injured.

The LRA utilizes some of the most horrific “recruiting” practices. Human rights organizations have documented tens of thousands of children from impoverished villages who have been abducted in the middle of the night and forced into military slavery (80% of the LRA is made up of abductees). Such tactics are commonplace. Some governments and rebel groups who utilize child soldiers claim that they recruit on a volunteer basis, but the United Nations Children’s Fund points out that these kids typically come from impoverished, marginalized communities, and question whether it is truly a free choice.

“Child soldiers are ideal because they don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill,” claimed a senior officer in Chad’s national army.

Military leaders state that children are easily molded to perform almost any kind of service, and after they’ve been forced to kill a few times (sometimes members of their own families and villages), they fight without fear. Child soldiers typically go through some type of “boot camp” where they are exposed to regular beatings, acts of humiliation and outright sadism. In Honduras, new child recruits were stripped, then forced to roll around on stony or thorny surfaces, while being beaten by older officers. In Myanmar, child recruits were forced to watch older soldiers gun down mothers and babies. Back in Uganda, LRA recruits were forced to ransack and terrorize villages, pounding toddlers to death with wooden mortars. This period of “indoctrination” often includes the introduction of drugs like marijuana and “brown-brown” (a mixture of cocaine and gunpowder), allowing for greater malleability and adding fuel to their sense of fearlessness.

Most child soldiers are teenagers, but some recruits are as young as seven. While boy soldiers have received a great deal of notoriety in the press, girl soldiers can be just as prevalent (making up to 40% of many paramilitary outfits).

Child soldiers perform all kinds of duties. They typically serve as cannon fodder, taking the greatest risks while fighting on the front lines as combatants. They also serve innumerable non-combat roles such as cooks, sentries, porters, spies, bodyguards, etc. Many serve in organized military units, their effectiveness enhanced by the widespread availability of lightweight assault weapons. Children may also be called upon to throw stones, plant bombs or even serve as suicide bombers.

In addition to serving as combatants, the fate of girl soldiers is even direr. They are often subject to the most demeaning forms of sexual slavery, exposed to countless acts of rape and serving as pseudo-wives for senior soldiers.

Former child soldier and author China Keitetsi detailed her plight. “For us female soldiers, we had to offer sex to more than five officers in one unit,” she writes. “Nearly every evening an officer would come and order you to report to his place, typically at 9 p.m. ... It was so painful, but I could only cry with my heart, because with tears I could never survive.” Female soldiers are also subjected to the same levels of general violence and mutilation. In some rebel groups, there are reports that girl soldiers are forced to use contraceptives and undergo abortions.

The use of child soldiers is not a new phenomenon. It can be traced back to the beginning of human history. What has changed is its prevalence and the methods that are used to “recruit” and train children. The objective of many paramilitaries and government armies is to strip these children of their dignity by using the most brutal tactics, to create subservient, enslaved killing machines.

While the international community has made strong proscriptions against the recruiting and use of child soldiers through the Convention on the Rights of the Child, there is no real enforcement mechanism in place, so its effect on the ground is questionable.

The U.S. has made some attempts to pass legislation addressing the use of child soldiers, but a great deal more needs to be done. During Bush’s second term, he signed the Child Soldiers Accountability Act that makes it a federal crime to recruit or use soldiers under the age of fifteen. During that same time period (end of 2008), the U.S. Congress also passed legislation to cut military aid to countries who use child soldiers.

These two acts of Congress were a great first step, but human rights lawyers suggest they don’t have the real teeth to make a long term difference. As often happens, accountability and enforcement fall by the wayside. Human rights groups suggest that any new child soldier legislation must incorporate better follow-up and tracking, must contain consistent definitions of what a child soldier is, and must affect all U.S. funding to countries who utilize soldiers of minor age. A strong distinction must also be made between legitimate recruiting of minors (leading up to age of majority) and criminal tactics of abduction and military enslavement.

The kidnapping and use of children for military purposes is one of the gravest injustices of our time. U.S. foreign policy leaders should take greater account of this horrific problem.

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(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)