Opinion analysis by Johnny Achkar, Staff Writer

July 8th, 2021

In early 1993, Ishmael Baeh was 11 years old when his country, Sierra Leone, was plunged into a brutal civil war. He was an ordinary kid who liked to listen to music. Two years later, he became a vengeful combat veteran who had killed more people than he could count. Murdering had become "as simple as drinking water," according to Baeh's memoir, A Long Way Home. Ismael is not alone. More than 100,000 children were forced to become soldiers in state and non-state military organizations in at least 18-armed conflicts throughout the world, according to the advocacy group Child Soldiers International in 2017. The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids minors under the age of 18 from engaging in wars, was approved by 159 countries in 2002. However, the pact has been frequently broken and has failed to put an end to child exploitation. 

To highlight a few, child soldiers are being recruited to satisfy the demands of the Islamic State, Somali rebels, and Yemeni opposition groups. According to UNICEF, child soldiers are now being used in 30 conflicts throughout the world. Rebel organizations entice young boys and girls for reasons that differ by area. Children are simple to influence, but there are other forces at work as well. Per the UNICEF, more than 11 million 15-year-old children in Sub-Saharan Africa are orphaned due to a variety of factors, including armed conflict, HIV/AIDS, and poverty. Armed organizations consider them "easy targets" because of their status.

Certain rebel organizations, such as those in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, provide disadvantaged children with opportunities, food, housing, and survival, tempting them with incentives that are difficult to come by in weak and unpredictable countries. On the evening of June 4, 2021, a group of young boys assisted in the execution of an attack that claimed the lives of at least 138 people in the northern town of Solhan, Burkina Faso. The majority of the assailants were children aged 12 to 14. The news came as ten percent of Burkina Faso's schools were forced to close owing to increased insecurity and the pandemic, a tendency that, according to experts, exposes youngsters to abuse, human trafficking, and combat recruiting. 

Mercy Corps, an American aid organization, recently conducted a study in which child soldiers in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Colombia were interviewed to determine what motivates them to join rebel groups. The study, which took place between June and August 2014, concluded that these young girls and boys join rebel groups because they feel marginalized and hopeless. Furthermore, financial difficulty is not always an issue.

Since the beginning of the war in Yemen in 2015, child soldiers have been a regular element of the conflict. UNICEF estimates that a third of all troops were under the age of 18 at the start of the conflict. Both the Houthi rebels and pro-government militias made promises to stop the practice, which they have now broken, according to UNICEF. Amnesty International reported in February on Houthi recruiting of minors as young as 15 years old. The dissolution of Yemen's civil administration has aggravated the problem. Teachers have gone unpaid for months in various parts of the country, particularly in the north, and schools have closed; some professors have even taken to the battlefields and fought with their students.

After capturing large areas of Iraq and Syria and declaring a caliphate in June 2014, ISIS concentrated its efforts on training the next generation of violent extremists. ISIS had easy pickings in regions under its control, with over 700,000 youngsters out of school. 1,100 youngsters aged 8 to 15 were brainwashed into the extreme Islamist militant organization known as the "Cubs of the Caliphate." While the majority of the “cubs” were Syrian and Iraqi, international youngsters from the United States, Kazakhstan, and Tunisia also joined the caliphate with their families. The youngsters were brainwashed through sharia courses, which were followed by basic weapon training.

The terrorist group utilized the youth in a variety of ways. Children participated on the battlefield alongside adult ISIS militants as human shields, despite being weaker, smaller, and less disciplined than adults. Others were used as suicide bombers as well. A 12-year-old ISIS member, for example, was killed as a suicide bomber at a Kurdish wedding in Turkey in 2016, murdering 53 people.

Child soldiers are victims, regardless of how they are recruited or what roles they play, and their participation in combat has significant consequences for their physical and mental well-being. They are frequently abused, and the majority of children see death, murder, and sexual assault. Many feel compelled to conduct violent acts, and some suffer long-term psychological effects as a result. The reintegration of these adolescents into civilian life is a critical component of the work being done to assist child soldiers in reconstructing their lives. 

The first step in reducing the use of child soldiers throughout the world is to collaborate with the UN to have all recognized nations sign OPAC. Recognized state actors must be sanctioned if they continue to pay for or recruit minors as troops. Advocacy organizations should press for state actors to be humiliated for their indirect backing of child soldiers, while governments should press for penalties against them to bring a stop to the exploitation of children by their proxies.

Finally, a complete monitoring organization should prioritize numerous needs, directing money to the most important concerns confronting child soldiers, such as counseling, healing, and rehabilitating former child soldiers for reintegration into society. This will be a multi-year project. Our endurance must equal the damage that conflict has on our world's exploited young.