Which countries recruit child (boys and girls) soldiers?
by 
Box of Chocolates
ANSWERS: 3
-
Many children in Africa, not so much by the established governments, but by the revolutionaries in those lands. The Associated Press reported that "More than 300,000 children—some as young as 7—are fighting as soldiers in 41 countries around the world," . Most are between the ages of 15 and 18. "Besides being used as front-line fighters, children are used to detect land mines and also as spies, porters and sex slaves, according to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers." Drugs are often administered to make children fearless. Those who refuse drugs are killed, said a 14-year-old rebel soldier in Sierra Leone. Regarding his fighting in 1999 when he was 15, a North African youth reported: "They put all the 15- and 16-year-olds in the front line while the army retreated. I was with 40 other kids. I was fighting for 24 hours. When I saw that only three of my friends were alive, I ran back." The Coalition’s report stated that governments recruit children because of "their very qualities as children—they can be cheap, expendable and easier to condition into fearless killing and unthinking obedience."
-
Countries on the UN list: Burundi, Chad, Colombia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Somalia, Sudan, Sri Lanka and Uganda, Myanmar and the Philippines.
-
usually totalitarian regimes. There are a few in Africa, and the Middle East is filling its children with enough propaganda to convince some of them to become suicide bombers.
RELATED QUESTIONS
Copyright 2023, Wired Ivy, LLC