CHILD SOLDIERS IN ARMED CONFLICTS

Pulkit Rahangdale

Let us claim children as zones of peace. In this

way, humankind will finally declare that childhood is
involatile and that all children must be spared the
pernicious effects of armed conflict, since Children
are both our reason to struggle to eliminate the
worst aspects of warfare, and our best hope for
succeeding at it
-Graca Machel

Democratic Republic of Congo, 2002

I dont know what I was fighting for. The rebels just told us that we were fighting for
the people. I dont know what the war was all about because at the time, I was not really
old enough to understand these things.

L, age

twelve
.

Sierra Leone, 2000

A squad of the Royal Irish Army, a specialist military force is taken hostage by a paltry
rebel unit called the West Side Boys in Sierra Leone after the Irish commander refuses
to fire at children armed with AK47s.

Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), 2007

Children were forcibly taken away from their families, often fed on drugs and used as
child soldiers who were trained to commit other brutal crimes against the civilian
population. Those child soldiers who survived the war were robbed of a childhood and
most of them lost a chance of an adequate rehabilitation.
A World at War
It is an unfortunate reality of war and armed conflicts that innocent civilians, including
children, are often the victims. It is these armed conflicts, that are so infrequently being
fought, that the repercussions of the AK47s is being felt on an ever-increasing level.
In 1900, it was estimated that civilians represented approximately 5 percent of the
casualties of conflict. This figure had risen to approximately 65 percent by the Second
World War.i Human rights groups now calculate that approximately 90 percent of all
casualties in recent armed conflicts have been made up of civilians, of which 40 percent
are children. For example, the Rwandan genocide that culminated in the appalling
massacres from AprilJuly 1994 claimed the lives of 300,000 children, with about
250,000 young girls being raped.ii

Who is a Child?
International Law defines a child simply in terms of age. An interpretation of the
International Humanitarian Laws and Article 1 of the United Nations Convention on the
Rights of Child suggest that a child is defined as an individual below the age of 15
years. However, some other laws and even the Optional Protocol to the Convention has
raised the minimum age for direct participation in hostilities to 18 years from the
minimum age of 15 years.
The jurists and advocates of the international humanitarian regime seem to have
deliberately not fixed the age limit of children in order to allow the taking into
consideration of varying views in different cultures with regard to the transformation
from a child to an adult.iii This bar of age to qualify as a child seems to be rooted on the
fact that a child is entitled to enjoy special protection of various aspects which
includes life, family, home, social relationships, education, food & nutrition, personal
development and the guarantee to be entitled to an optimum standard of physical and
psychological development.

Hence, age is the relevant and determining factor in directly regulating the issue of child
soldiers in relation to the international law principles; in absence of any other
measurable entity to ascertain the maturity of an individual.
Caught in a Landslide; No Escape from Reality
Armed conflicts expose the sheer vulnerability and the impact on the lives of children in
many ways. In the 10th Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General
for Children & Armed Conflict, it was urged to end the impunity for the following six
categories of grave crimes against children in situations of armed conflicts:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

The killing and maiming of children;

Their recruitment and use as child soldiers;
Rape and other grave sexual violence;
Abduction of children;
Attacks against schools and hospitals; and
Denial of Humanitarian access to assist children.iv

Children are often passive victims as this list suggests, since they find themselves in
the path of war in which they are the targets of violence; being either victims of the
general onslaught against civilians while others die as part of a calculated genocide.
Some suffer the effects of sexual violence or multiple deprivations which result inter
alia in the lack of parental care and a family environment; of food and educational
facilities and contribute to the spread of diseases.

Moreover, these young recruits

further perpetrate violence on civilians thereby endangering their lives and their rights.
It would be correct to state that these armed conflicts violate the fundamental rights of
children such as the Right to Life, to be with family and community, to the development
of the childs personality, to be nurtured and to be protected; by disrupting the social
networks and primary relationships that support childrens physical, emotional, moral,
cognitive and social development.vi Hence, the negative impacts of war in both
normative and pragmatic perspectives on the childs growth and development can be
prudently realised and should be eliminated. In the normative perspective, every child
should enjoy childhood, schooling and therefore must be work-free while in the
pragmatic perspective the nature of work and working conditions impedes the growth
and development of children.vii Reports of mutilation and ritualistic cannibalism are also
increasing among such armed groups.

Some conflicts last the length of a childhood resulting in physical and psychological
trauma invariably in those who have experienced multiple and accumulative assaults.
Introducing: A Child Soldier
An emerging aspect of international armed conflicts and the ever-prevalent internal
disturbances is that an increasing number of children are being forced to actively
participate in the conflicts as soldiers. In its 2004 report, the Coalition to Stop the Use of
Child Soldiers conservatively estimates that there are approximately 300,000 children
participating directly in conflicts, where children are found to be fighting in almost
every major conflict, in both government and opposition forces.viii
The advent of child soldiers in modern armed conflicts have been brought to light
through a barrage of graphic international news agency articles and human rights
reports. The Child-Soldier Doctrine: a calculated strategy by armed groups to use
children as combatants has been employed, since the US Civil War and the Hitler
Jugend (Hitler Youth) in Nazi Germany, as exceptions to the millennia-old prohibition
on the use of children as combatants.ix More recently, in the past two decades, the
African continent has been ravaged with the problem of child soldiers where countries
such as Algeria, Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazaville, the Democratic Republic of
Congo, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra-Leone, Sudan, Chad and Uganda being most affected
while to a lesser extent Ethiopia and Eritrea.x
To understand the gravity of the issue, it would be interesting to note that in addition to
these estimated 300,000 engaged in actual military conflict, another 500,000 children
are conscripted into paramilitary organisations, guerrilla groups and civil militias in
over eighty-five countries.xi Apart from serving as fighting troops on the front-line,
these soldiers also serve in other indirect roles such as sex-slaves, porters, cooks,
spies and perform life-threatening tasks such as planting land-mines xii The existence of
girl soldiers and their sexual abuse as soldiers wives, including the atrocities that
take place after their inevitable pregnancy is a particularly troubling problem.xiii
It is not always that only the rebels employ children; not the government forces and
vice-versa as within Pakistan, Taliban training camps teach boys as young as five to be
soldiers, human shields and suicide bombers, though the Pakistani military has
abstained from employing them. In contrast, the oppositional group Bundu Dia Kongo
in the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to have refrained despite the DRC

governments alleged use of children as party to any regular of irregular armed force in
a combat or support role.xiv
Use of Child Soldiers: A Tactical Military Innovation
A survey of over 190 internal armed conflicts around the globe between governments
and rebel groups has concludes that governments employed child soldiers in about 55%
of the examined conflicts while rebel groups had done so in about 71% of the time. On a
deeper perusal of these figures is was reveals that governments were the sole party that
used child soldiers 10 % of the time, rebel groups 26% of the time and most strikinglyboth the parties used them 45% of the time xv. Sadly, neither sides employed them in
only about 20% of the examined internal conflicts, hence making these young warriors
a pressing policy issue that warrants significant attention.xvi
There are many reasons that are attributed for the proliferation of child soldiers, the
following being the major three causal factors:
1.

Social disruption and failed development in impoverished countries has created

a vulnerable pool of children who are easy targets for abduction or voluntary
recruitment.

2.

Technological gains have made lethal weapons smaller, more accurate, and
easier to use than ever before. Today, a child as young as 10 can and do use the
widely available AK-47; which weighs 11 pounds, has just nine moving parts,
never jams, fires in all conditions, is cheap, plentiful in the arms black-market
and requires half an hour of basic training to fire with reasonable accuracy.

3.

Non-state actors in modern conflicts view children as low-cost and efficient aids
to their strategy to rapidly expand and field their project force.xvii

From Children to Child-Soldiers: Supply-Side Accounts

The poverty-level of a state constitutes a structural variable that can affect a childs
access to the basic necessities and legitimate paths for improving their prospects in life.
High poverty-levels lead to weak state-governments that lack the ability to ensure the
basic requirements of the societies impoverished children. Consequently, seeking the
shelter of insurgent groups or government recruitment programs becomes a more

socially and economically viable option for children. Limited educational opportunities
for children also makes the recruitment of child soldiers easier.xviii
Machel, in her landmark study on the issue of Child-Soldiers notes that 90% of the
children in Afghanistan lacked access to education and thus the number of child soldiers
during the 1990s had climbed to about 45% from the previous 30%. Similar was the
case in Sri Lanka, where inadequate education can make the LLTE seem like a viable
option for many adolescents. Lack of employment opportunities is another contributing
cause to the ever-increasing number of such soldiers. For example, in the decade-long
Sierra Leonean civil war, the youth either joined pro-government or rebel factions as
they perceived soldiering as an opportunity to earn a living in the absence of educational
opportunities and the existing limited economic prospects in the country.xix

From Soldiers to Child Soldiers: Demand-Side Accounts

While the supply-side factors in regard to the recruitability of child soldiers stand apt to
both the governments and rebel-groups in similar ways; the demand-side accounts
reflect that the reason why governments and rebel-groups would want to employ child
soldiers vary.
Child soldiers provide rebel groups with a means of bolstering their numbers versus the
numerically superior government forces, thus eliminating the major causal influence of
manpower shortage.

xx

Children are more readily coerced (often kidnapped and

threatened with death if they do not join the insurgents) and reprogrammed (controlled
by the insurgents, in many cases through the use of drugs as lethal as cocaine) giving
the war-lords a cost-optimal combination of effectiveness and ease of retention. xxi
Although these children are put into danger, they too are of greater danger to their
adversaries.
There also ensues a list of tactical benefits that the use of child soldiers provide to the
rebel-groups in confronting superior and well-equipped government forces. Lets take
an insight into one such notable advantage that the Palestinian rebel groups took during
the Intifadas. The Israeli troops had a standing order not to shoot ammunition against
children under the age of twelve. So, Palestinian gunmen began working in tandem with
the children; using their efforts to draw out Israeli troops as well as provide a screen for

sniping.xxii Pulling youth into the battle-zones brought international media attention to
the Palestinian cause and also preyed on the oppositions moral vulnerability.xxiii
Governments too, readily benefit from the efficiency of child fighters in the battlefield.
Children can remedy troop shortages and can also be quickly trained and motivated
(through persuasion and/or coercion) to fight in an unrestrained fashion. Because
governments have institutionalised methods for recruitment, training regiments, can
provide uniforms, regular rations and even pay; they have the upper-hand in dominating
the marketplace for young warriors. Even if the government is training children to be
soldiers and not placing them on the battlefield, they draw the streamlining advantage of
generating loyalty as well. In the 1990s, the Ashbal Saddam (Saddams Lion Cubs)
were a specialised unit created by the Iraqi government who were taught how to use
weapons and were deeply indoctrinated in the ideology of Saddam Husseins state. xxiv
These cubs were being prepared for their military adulthood.

A Child is Born: Right to know Her/his Rights

Children have the right to know their rights. However, this statement seems to be in dire
irony to the fact that half of the current force at war in Africa is comprised of children,
who dont have access to a square-meal; let alone access to the knowledge of their
fundamentally-born rights. Making children aware of their own rights is an aspect of the
child rights regime that indicates not only a transformation of the legal and social status
of the child, but also the emergence of the child as an addressee of international law. A
child emerged as a legal subject of human rights within the context of the international
development of a growing concern towards the plight of the children. Thus, giving rise
to the realisation that a protection system for these children was the need of the hour.
As the story goes, following the atrocities and war-crimes of World War I the
international community collectively created a legal system to protect individuals
against such excesses. Children were of particular concern as their special needs were
seen as a priority.xxv International human rights law developed in importance after World
War II. However, the League of Nations adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the
Child as early as in 1924. This Declaration stipulates that "mankind owes the child the
best it has to give beyond and above all considerations of race, nationality or creed"
which must be accorded to the child. Thus, it is a formulated duty of the international

community to facilitate information to children about the human rights system, through
its education and information modules.
The Regulation of Child Soldiers in International Law
There are a number of fundamental international law instruments that are aimed at the
regulation of Child Soldiers. While majority of these instruments set standards for the
recruitment practices of young persons, others deal with the criminalisation of certain
actions is regard to such soldiers. In effect, the state parties, through entering into either
of these types of international instruments, agree to take on and comply with certain
international legal obligations, the violation of which renders them responsible under
international law principles of State responsibility for a breach of their conventional
obligations.xxvi In this regard, the oft-quoted judgement of the Nuremberg International
Military Tribunal reflects the traditional view. The tribunal stated:
That international law imposes duties and liabilities upon individuals as
well as upon States has long been recognised Crimes against
international law are committed by men, not abstract entities and only by
punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of
international law be enforced.xxvii
Thus, it is appropriate to categorise the relevant international humanitarian law
provisions into two classes of regulation-- one dealing with the responsibilities imposed
upon states and the other providing for the international criminal responsibility of
individuals in relation to the menace of child soldiers.

The Prohibition and/or Restriction on the Recruitment of Child Soldiers

Prior to the earliest international standards applicable to the issue of children
participating in armed conflicts: the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Four 1949 Geneva
Conventions, international law did not deal directly with the issue. These provisions
were introduced largely in reaction to the growing realisation within the international
community that more and more children were being actively used in wars and armed
conflicts.

However, the standards of these protocols were set at considerably low levels as it set
the minimum age for the use and recruitment of children as fifteen years and State
parties were only required to take all feasible measures to eradicate the menace at
hand. These were the earliest international legal obligations upon State parties in regard
to the issue of child soldiers.
1990 African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
The only regional instrument in the world to address the issue of Child Soldiers is the
1990 African Charterxxviii owing to the rampant use of children in warfare activities in
the armed conflicts that have so severely plagued the continent.
Its adoption is in itself a milestone as it defines a child as anyone below the age of
eighteen years, as specified in article 22.2, which provides that state parties to the
present Charter shall take all necessary measures to ensure that no child shall take a
direct part in hostilities and refrain, in particular, from recruiting any child.xxix
Interestingly, of all the international law instruments currently dealing with the use of
Child Soldiers, the African Charter sets the highest standards. It sets a without
exception minimum age of eighteen years and has stronger language all necessary
measures. The tragic reality is the failure that to comply with these laudable standards
by a number of African Member States.

1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child

The CRC provides rules in relation to the active participation of children and their
recruitment, mandating the minimum age limit of fifteen years for direct participation
or recruitment.xxx This is a well-criticised anomaly when one considers the overall
context of the CRC and the fact that it defines a child as any person under eighteen
years.
The CRC, being universally ratified except for two countries, one being the so-called
harbinger of Democracy: United States of America and the other being Somalia has
been viewed as a major advance for the protection of children. The CRC is notable as it
is grounded on the principle of upholding the best interests of the child and sets out
guidelines, including protection and guarantees; for the state to promote an environment

conducive to the development of a child such as the right of the child to the enjoyment
of the highest level of attainable health (Art. 24), the right to education (Art. 28), the
right to freedom of expression (Art. 12 and 13), the freedom of participation and
assembly (Art. 15) and the right to information from the mass media (Art. 17), just to
name a few.

1999 International Labour Organisation Convention No. 182 on the Prohibition and
Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour
Under the terms of the 1999 ILO Convention,xxxi a child is defined as a person under the
age of 18 years and state parties are under the obligation to take immediate and
effective measures to secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child
labour as a matter of urgency. Art. 3 of the 1999 ILO Convention specifies that the
term worst forms of child labour includes (a) all forms of slavery such as the sale
and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labour,
including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflicts.xxxii

2000 Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of Children in Armed Conflicts
This protocol was fabricated with a view to address the deficiencies of the CRC with
regards to age, type of recruitment and participation. Though the Convention was
ratified by more countries than any other human rights treaty in history, its chief
criticism drew from the fact that only the state parties were obliged to respect its norms;
leaving the non-state actors free to do all they want as they wish.
The 2000 Optional Protocol is the most recent international instrument that elaborates
on standards in relation to the recruitment of children into armed forces. The
instrumentxxxiii recognises a need to increase the protection of children from
involvement in armed conflicts. While the terms of the protocol raise the minimum age
to eighteen for non-government armed forces, the standards fall short as set by some of
the previous instrumentsparticularly the 1999 ILO Convention and the African
Charter.

The Optional Protocol (OP) imposed an obligation on the armed groups (non-state
actors) not to under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities persons under the
age of 18 years. This could be said that, this is more of a moral obligation that a legal
one.xxxiv The OP also imposes a duty on the state parties to take all feasible measures to
prevent such recruitment and use, including the adoption of legal measures necessary to
prohibit and criminalise such practices.

The Criminalisation of the Recruitment of Child Soldiers

The legal regime under the rules of the international criminal law defines certain
international crimes and further provides for the fixing of individual criminal
responsibility of those who commit these crimes. The international criminal judicial
bodies are given a specific jurisdiction over particular international crimes in
accordance with the terms of their respective constituent documents. it is in this regard
that the international community has seen fit to encompass the recruitment of children
into armed forces as an international crime in certain circumstances and rightly so.

The International Criminal Court

The mandate of the court is complimentary to that of states, meaning thereby that the
court is to be regarded as a court of last resort. It has jurisdiction with respect to the
following crimes committed after July 2002:
1.
2.
3.
4.

The Crime of Genocide;

Crimes against Humanity;
War Crimes and
The crimes of Aggression.xxxv

In the given context of an international armed conflict, the definition includes but is not
limited to "the enlisting of children under the age of fifteen years into the national
armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities. The use of child
soldiers in specific circumstances that constitute crimes against humanity include an act
of enslavement, imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in
violation of fundamental rules of international law and rape, sexual slavery, [or]
enforced prostitution.

The Rome Statute, that has established the ICC, sets a minimum age of 18 years at the
time of alleged commission of the crime for persons over whom the ICC has
jurisdiction. Thus, this has a direct impact on the possibility of a child soldier being held
criminally responsible for her/his actions. This is clearly a case of inconsistency as far
as the regulation of international criminal law is concerned. On the one hand, there
exists a prohibition on the enlistment of child soldiers under the age of fifteen years; yet
the ICC is not mandated to examine the actions of those children who might have
committed international crimes.
Right to Reintegration and Recovery
It goes without saying that the ultimate abode to a child is a parental home, where the
best interests of the child is a primary consideration. Though the child soldiers that this
essay deals about may be severely abused and forced to commit crimes under duress or
under the influence of desensitising drugs, the requisite mens rea to establish such
children as criminals under the international law regime may be absent. There is, and
forever will be, a measure of uncertainty associated with the question whether to treat a
child soldier as a victim who has the right to reintegration and recovery or as a
perpetrator of violence against humanity who should be prosecuted.
It is strongly argued that children should occupy a role in the peace-making process that
recognises their vulnerabilities with a view to their rehabilitation; as children are viewed
primarily as victims because of their emotional, mental and intellectual vulnerability. It
is in light of these arguments that Art. 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
(1989) provides as follows:
States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to promote physical and
psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of any
form of neglect, exploitation, or abuse; torture or any form of cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; or armed conflicts. Such
recovery and reintegration shall take place in an environment which fosters
the health, self-respect and dignity of the child.xxxvi
As a point of departure, it is increasingly accepted that armed conflicts infringe upon the
various fundamental rights of the child, making it clear that that they are indeed one
among the various victims of the conflict. Also, it now appears a well-settled position
that child soldiers under the age of 15 years should not be prosecuted; while there is a

growing consensus in regard to those belonging to the age-bracket of 15-18 years of age
that they should be recovered and reintegrated into the society.
This realisation is stemmed in the belief that the society, along with these recovered and
reintegrated former-child soldiers, would benefit more from their presence in the society
where they respectfully belong rather that in a military camp of a retention unit for war
prisoners.

Concluding Comments
It is an alarming and a massive human tragedy to see the escalating use of children as
weapons of war. Every child pushed into this menace represents a lost childhood often
leading into the loss of life of that young individual. Those that survive the ordeal are so
traumatised that it becomes virtually impossible for them in any practical way to
recover the lost years, sensitivities, hope and sadly in certain cases lost limbs and
optimism beyond any fathomable degree. Child soldiers are mostly ostracised by their
societies because of the stigma associated with their bloodshed and in case of females:
inevitable pregnancy after serving years as sex slaves. Even if they are to return home,
there are hardly any means to support themselves and are forced to turn back to their
previous engagement further compounding their stigmatization.
What is needed is a more concerted effort to improve the standards and enforcement
mechanisms to counter the use of children in the military, by making these regimes
much weaker and the children much safer. Setting the age of recruitment in the armed
forces at a minimum of 18 years would be a strong measure in this direction.
The international community, in face of the constant pressure from the human rights
groups and civil society must do more to protect the child, as these children have been
much more wounded by the world than vice-versa. This is not only a moral issue but is
also highly relevant for the maintenance of international peace and security: one of
the primary purposes of the United Nations. The issue of child soldiers must no longer
be treated as a political issue or be regarded simply as a localised or internal question;
but its realisation must be made globally since the problem contributes to regional as
well as global instability.

The chief advance in furtherance of the efforts to stop the child soldier tragedy would be
to stop armed conflicts altogether. Of course this step in totality would be an
unattainable goal, nevertheless it is no reason to take tangible measures to mitigate the
possibility of these ever-occurring internal or international conflicts. More weight is
attached to this goal when one realises that our children are in circumstances that render
them extremely vulnerable to be coerced into the front lines. Without such concrete
measures, the advantages of using child soldiers in warfare coupled with the flawed
(but improving) regime of the international humanitarian laws in regard to child soldiers
would outcast the measures and dedicated efforts of the concerned parties and the
international community against the phenomena of Child Soldiers.
It is an unfortunate truism that international lawincluding the provisions that are
aimed at protecting children and eliminating the Child Soldiers Doctrinedoesnt enlist
the eradication of armed conflicts altogether. Hence, strengthening the international law
with the necessary support to utilise the established global framework and formulating
alternate policies and institutions that truly address the concerns of these children will
go a long way in tackling the war at hand.
We must, therefore account for and address the conflict in its entire contextthe social,
cultural, geopolitical, economic, geographical, development and equity considerations
and the prevalent circumstances that transformed the innocent children into lethal
weapons of modern warfare, either voluntarily or through coercion.
Joint efforts by the stakeholders-- including us-- must do all in our capacity to
accomplish the protection of the current and future generations of innocent children,
since words on paper alone cannot save these children in peril.

i Graca Machel, Study on the Impact of Armed Conflicts on Children, 6 U. N. Doc A/51/306 (Aug
1996).

ii Stephanie Bald, Searching for a Lost Childhood: Will the Special Court of Sierra Leone Find
Justice for its Children? 18 AM University International Law Review 537 (2002).

iii Roberto A., Children in Armed Conflicts in Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International
Law (2006)

iv Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Children
and Armed Conflict, 36 U. N. Doc A/62/228 (Aug 2007).

v Nylund, International Journal on Childrens Rights 23 (1998) see further Aldrich & Bardaah,
Rights of Children in Armed Conflicts 2002

vi Plattner, 1984 International Review of the Red Cross 142 refers to a report of UNESCO which
explains that it is not the facts of war itself (bombings, military operations, etc.) which affect
the child but the repercussions of the events on the family and on affective ties, and the
separation from her/his customary framework of life which affect the child.

vii Ravinder Rena, Child Rights Convention and its Implementation, Indian Ocean Digest 22 (Jan
2007)

viii Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, Child Soldiers Global Report (Nov 2004). The
report mentions countries such as Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Sudan,
the United States, Columbia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nepal, Indonesia, Australia, Austria,
Germany, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom as using children, or supporting the use of
children, in government and paramilitary forces. Children are also used by opposition forces
such as the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA)
in Burma, the Revolutionary Armed Force of Columbia (FARC) and the Sudans People Liberation
Army. None of these lists is exhaustive.

ix P. W. Singer, Children at War (New York: Pantheon, 2005).

x Ravinder Rena, Child Soldiers in Armed Conflicts, Sumatera Utara Indonesia Kalinga Vol 5
(2004).

xi Cris Revaz, The Optional Protocol to the U. N. Convention on the rights of the Child, 1 Human
Rights Brief 13 (2001).

xii Nancy Morisseau, Seen But Not Heard: Child Soldiers Suing Gun Manufacturers under the
Alien Torts Claim Act, 89 Cornell Law Review 1263, 1279 (2004).

xiii Benjamin Perrin, Child Soldiers: Legal and Military Challenges 2005.

xiv Robert Tynes, Government, Rebels and the Use of Child Soldiers in Internal Armed Conflicts
(July 2011).

xv Supra note xiv, the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers notes that it is very difficult at
any time to ascertain the total number of child soldiers being used because disputes have large
incentives to hide or diminish the actual figures.

xvi Achvarina, Vera and Simon Simon F. Reich (2006), No Place to Hide: Refugees, Displaced
Persons and the Recruitment of Child Soldiers International Security 31 (1) pp 127-164.

xvii P. W. Singer, Children at War (New York: Pantheon, 2005).

xviii Cohn, Ilene and Goodwin-Gill (1994), Child Soldiers: The Role of Children in Armed Conflict
Oxford University Press

xix Sesay, Amadu and Wale Ismail (2003). The Phenomenon of Child Soldiers in Armed
Conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone Ibadan College Press, pp 137-166.

xx Dorothea Woods, (1993) Child Soldiers: The Recruitment of Children into Armed Forces and
their Participation in Hostilities London: Quaker Peace and Service.

xxi Blattman (2007) The Causes of Child Soldiering: Evidence from Northern Uganda. Paper
presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association 48 th Annual
Convention, Hilton CHICAGO.

xxii Supra note xvii.

xxiii Honwana (2006) Child Soldiers in Africa. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press.

xxiv Supra note ix

xxv Nigel Cantwell (1992), The Origins, Development and Significance of the UNCRC Dorchect
19-31

xxvi See MARTIN SHAW, International Law 694-752 (5th ed. 2003).

xxvii Judgement of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal 41 American Journal of

International Law 172, 221 (1947)

xxviii African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, OAU Doc. CAB/LEG/24.9/49 (July
1990)

xxix African Charter on the Child art. 22.2

xxx Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3

xxxi June 1999, 2133 U.N.T.S. 161, ILO Convention No. 182

xxxii Id. at Art. 3.

xxxiii Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of
Children in Armed Conflicts, May 2000 G.A. Res. 54/263, Doc. A/54/49

xxxiv Helle (2000), Optional Protocol International Review of the Red Cross, 805.

xxxv Rome Statute Art. 5 (1)

xxxvi Art. 39, Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov 1989 !577 U.N.T.S. 3