Child Soldiers

International Children’s Rights

Dr Alison Bisset
Who is a child soldier?
 Defining “child soldier”

“…any person below 18 years of age who is, or has

been, recruited or used by an armed force or armed
group in any capacity, including, but not limited to
children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks,
porters, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not
only refer to a child who is taking, or has taken, a
direct part in hostilities.” Paris Principles, 2007
The perception
The reality?
 Contemporary images of child soldiers

• Passive victims – helpless, vulnerable, devoid of agency

and needing intervention
• Deviant and threatening, bloodthirsty predators

Campaign from the Coalition to Stop Child World Vision campaign to raise awareness
Soldiers (2009) about child soldiers in South Sudan (2014)
 Implications of the victim image

• Pathologises poorer countries as the site of all

child soldier activity
• Global North escapes scrutiny
• Rejects agency/autonomy of children:
– No “voluntary” enlistment
– No responsibility for actions
• Encourages protection but narrows responses
What are the difficulties in
defining child soldiers?
Difficulties in defining “child soldier”

Wessells, 2006:
• Contested notion of “child” and childhood
• Membership of a range of different groups
• Fulfilment of a range of roles
• Varying degrees of involvement
Why is the use of child soldiers
becoming more common?
 Humanitarian explanations for the child
soldier crisis:
• The changing nature of conflict:
– Civil rather than international in nature
– Increasingly on ethnic/religious grounds
– Civilians have become targets rather than a protected group
• Advances in weaponry
• For armed forces/groups, children are:
– Cheap
– Available
– Easily trained
– Easily conditioned
– Tactically advantageous
How and why do children
become soldiers?
Paths to recruitment

Abduction/forcible conscription

Enlistment/presenting for service

Born into armed forces/groups

 Why do children become soldiers?

• Poverty/survival
• Economic and social advancement
• Revenge
• Identity
• Power
• Purpose
• Extension of their peacetime role
 How has international law
responded to the problem of
child soldiering?
 International Law’s Response

• Obligations on states:
– Under the laws of war
– Under international human rights law

• Individual criminal responsibility

 Obligations on states under the laws of war:
• Geneva Convention IV 1949 – protection to children in conflict as
“protected persons” (only applicable in IAC)

• Additional Protocol I 1977, Art. 77(2) (applies to International Armed Conflict)

– “all feasible measures” to ensure that children who have not attained
the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities
– refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces
– in recruiting those aged between 15-18, endeavour to give priority to
the oldest

• Additional Protocol II 1977, Art. 4(3) (applies to Non-International Armed Conflict)

– Children shall be provided with the care and aid they require, and in
particular... (c) children who have not attained the age of fifteen years
shall neither be recruited in the armed forces or groups nor allowed to
take part in hostilities.
 Obligations on states under IHRL
• UNCRC Art. 38(2) –States Parties shall take all feasible
measures to ensure under 15s do not take a direct part in
hostilities

• UNCRC Art. 38(3) – prohibits the recruitment of under 15s

into the armed forces and requires that in recruiting
among those aged between 15 and 18, States Parties shall
endeavour to give priority to those who are oldest.

• ILO Convention 182 on the worst forms of child labour

(1999), Arts. 1, 3(a) – forced recruitment of children for
use in armed conflict is one of the worst forms of child
labour and states must take action to prevent it.
 Obligations under IHRL cont.
OP on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (2000)

• 173 States Parties (Nov 23)

• Art 1 – requires States Parties to take all feasible measures to ensure that
members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years
do not take a direct part in hostilities.
• Art 2 –prohibits the compulsory recruitment of under 18s into the armed
forces
• Art 3 - states must raise the age of voluntary recruitment and implement
safeguards where recruitment is permitted for under 18s
• Art 4 – prohibits the recruitment and use in hostilities of under 18s by
armed groups
 Individual criminal responsibility
• Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone,
Art. 4(c) – criminalises conscripting or enlisting under 15s
into armed forces or groups or using them in hostilities

• Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Arts.

8(2)(b)(xxvi) 8(2)(e)(vii) – criminalises conscripting or
enlisting under 15s into national armed forces or groups
or using them in hostilities
Special Court for Sierra Leone, Prosecutor v. Charles Taylor

Convicted in 2012 of war crimes and crimes against

humanity, including the use of child soldiers, and sentenced
to 50 years imprisonment.
Special Court for Sierra Leone, Prosecutor v. Brima, Kamara and
Kanu (AFRC case)

Convicted in 2007 of various offences, including the use

of child soldiers.
Brima and Kanu were sentenced to 50 years’
imprisonment, and Kamara to 45 years.
Special Court for Sierra Leone,
Prosecutor v. Sesay, Kallon and Gbao (RUF case)

Convicted in 2009 of using child soldiers as a violation

of international humanitarian law.
Sesay was sentenced to 52 years’ imprisonment,
Kallon to 40 years and Gbao to 25 years.
ICC, Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, convicted in
March 2012 of the war crimes of enlisting and
conscripting of children under the age of 15 years and
using them to participate actively in hostilities in DRC.
Sentenced to 14 years’ imprisonment.

ICC, Prosecutor v. Bosco Ntaganda convicted in

November 2019 of 18 counts of war crimes and crimes
against humanity, including conscription, enlistment and
use of children in DRC conflict
Sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment.

ICC, Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen, convicted in

February 2021 of 61 counts of crimes against humanity
and war crimes, including conscription of children
Sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

ICC, Prosecutor v. Joseph Kony et al – arrest warrants

issued for war crimes including the enlisting of children
through abduction in Uganda.
Are child soldiers victims or
perpetrators?
 Are child soldiers victims?
We walked into the forest …holding our guns as if they were the
only thing that gave us strength. There was an exchange of fire. My
face, my hands, my shirt and gun were covered with blood. I raised
my gun and pulled the trigger. I killed a man. All the massacres I had
seen since the day I was touched by war began flashing in my head.
Every time I stopped shooting to change magazines, and saw my
two young lifeless friends, I angrily pointed my gun and killed more
people. I shot everything that moved until we were ordered to
retreat. I stayed up all night and couldn’t sleep for a week.
My daily activities were replaced with soldierly things. We walked
for long hours and stopped only to eat, sniff cocaine and take some
white capsules….Killing had become as easy as drinking water. We
raided rebel camps and attacked civilian villages to capture recruits
and whatever else we could find.
(Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone, 2008)
 Are child soldiers perpetrators?
“Wait!” the rebel hollered. “You must choose a punishment
before you go. Which hand do you want to lose first?” I set off
at a run but it was no use. The older rebel caught me. Three
boys hauled me up by the arms. One of the boys grabbed my
right arm and the other stretched my hand over the flat part of
the boulder.
It took the two boys two attempts to cut off my right hand. The
first swipe didn’t get through the bones, which I saw sticking
out in all different shapes. It took three attempts to cut off my
left hand. Some of the flesh remained and hung precariously
loose. I sank to the ground as the boy wiped blood off the
machete and walked away. As my eyelids closed, I saw the
rebel boys giving each other high-fives. I could hear them
laughing. (Mariatu Kamara, Bite of the Mango, 2008)
How does international law
view child soldiers?
 Child soldiers in international law
• Victims - incapable of making informed decisions

• Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Article 7

– No jurisdiction over under 15s.
– If 15-18 year olds are to be prosecuted, he/she shall be treated
with dignity and a sense of worth, taking into account his/her
young age and the desirability of promoting his or her
rehabilitation, reintegration into and assumption of a constructive
role in society, and in accordance with international human rights
standards, in particular the rights of the child.
– If found guilty, the Court can order: care, guidance and
supervision orders, community service, counselling, foster care,
correctional, educational and vocational training programmes,
approved schools and any programmes of disarmament,
demobilization and reintegration programmes.

• No one under 15 – or 18 – was prosecuted by the SCSL

 Child soldiers in international law cont....

• ICC Statute, Art 26 - The Court shall have no jurisdiction

over any person who was under the age of 18 at the time
of the alleged commission of a crime.

• ICC considers the distinction between voluntary and

enforced recruitment “irrelevant” based on the notion
that children cannot give informed consent when joining
an armed group (Lubanga Judgement, para. 610-611)
Dominic • Abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
at around 9 years old while walking to school.
Ongwen • Forced to commit brutal acts after failed
escape.

• Rose through LRA ranks, becoming brigadier in

late 20s.

• 2002 - 2005, involved in attacks on civilian

populations, including murder, torture, rape,
enslavement, forced marriage, conscription of
child soldiers.

• 2005 – ICC issued arrest warrant for Ongwen

• 2015 – Ongwen surrendered to US Forces in

Central African Republic
 • 2015 - Ongwen transferred to the ICC
Dominic
Ongwen • 2016 – trial opens for 70 crimes against
humanity and war crimes

• Feb 2021 – convicted of 61 counts –

– Found fully responsible for all crimes. No evidence
that supported the claim that he suffered from any
mental disease or disorder or that he
committed crimes under duress.

• May 2021 – Ongwen sentenced to 25 years

imprisonment and defence submit intention to
appeal

• Dec 2022 – appeal unanimously dismissed.

• Dissenting judgment – experience as child

soldier ought to have served as mitigation in
sentencing
UN Security Council Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism

• Established 2005 under UNSC Resolution 1612

• Gathers information on 6 grave violations committed
against children:
– Killing and maiming
– Recruitment and use in armed conflict
– Sexual violence
– Attacks against schools and hospitals
– Abduction
– Denial of humanitarian assistance
• States who are responsible are listed in the Secretary
General’s annual report and encouraged to work with
the UN to develop Actions Plans for prevention.
 2022 Annual Report of the Secretary General on
Children and Armed Conflict, (A/77/895)

• Over 27,180 grave violations in 2022 in 24 situations.

• Highest numbers of grave violations – DRC, Israel/Palestine, Somalia, Syria,
Ukraine, Afghanistan and Yemen.

• 8,631 killed or maimed

• 8,521 recruited and used
• 3,985 abducted
• 3,931 verified instances of denial of humanitarian assistance
• 1,810 attacks on schools and hospitals
• 1,165 verified cases of sexual violence

• NSAG responsible for 50% of violations, government forces were the main
perpetrator of killing/maiming, attacks on schools and hospitals and denial
of humanitarian assistance.