Child Soldiers: Protecting the Rights of Children in Conflict

This essay discusses the definition of child soldiers, international instruments for their protection, and the response of non-governmental institutions. It also explores the increasing number of child soldiers in the Middle East and North Africa.

Legal Studies
Term 2 Assessment Task: Human Rights
Topic: Child Soldiers

1
Introduction
Children are considered the future of society. As a result, there is often the need
to protect them from any danger. The responsibility of any adult figure is to protect a
child from any imminent threat and to ensure the proper growth and development of
the child so that he or she lives to be an adult. However, often situations are observed
where a child is seen to work in extremely dangerous and threatening conditions
(Honwana 2018). This essay submission seeks to make a case for stronger protections
for child soldiers’ human rights. This essay will discuss the definition of child soldiers
by looking at certain situations where they are utilised. The essay further looks into
the various international instruments which are supposed to ensure the protection of
children and their rights. Finally, the essay also discusses the response of the various
non-governmental institutions against such human rights violations by looking into
several media sources.
Defining Child Soldiers
A child soldier is defined as a person of less than eighteen years of age and who
is employed in the military services (Lasley and Thyne 2015). They can be either
gender, and are found primarily in African and Asian countries. Some of these
children are used for fighting purposes, such as committing acts of violence and
killing which cannot be carried out by an adult for various reasons. More often,
children are mainly used for acting as spies against the enemy, or in roles such as
cooking for the combat troops. Underage girls are frequently also used for sexual
purposes for the people fighting in the war. This treatment can have devastating
effects on a child, especially psychological impacts where their memories are scarred
from such terror.
Evidence for child soldiers
In a recent media release by the Guardian (2017), it was found out that the
number of child soldiers in the Middle East and North Africa has doubled in the last
five years. In the crisis in Yemen, many children are being recruited by both the
References:
Ansell, N., 2016. Children, youth and development. Routledge.
Child Soldiers International. (2019). Children attacked, recruited & abused in
conflict as UN ‘list of shame’ names offenders. [online] Available at:
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as-contentious-un-list-of-shame-reveals-worst-global-offenders [Accessed 20 Mar.
2019].
Haer, R. and Böhmelt, T., 2016. The impact of child soldiers on rebel groups’ fighting
capacities. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 33(2), pp.153-173.
Honwana, A., 2018. Negotiating postwar identities: child soldiers in Mozambique and
Angola. In Contested terrains and constructed categories (pp. 277-298). Routledge.
Lasley, T. and Thyne, C., 2015. Secession, legitimacy and the use of child
soldiers. Conflict Management and Peace Science, 32(3), pp.289-308.
McVeigh, K. (2019). Child soldier recruits double in one year in Middle East and
North Africa. [online] the Guardian. Available at:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2017/sep/11/child-soldier-recruits-
double-in-one-year-in-middle-east-and-north-africa [Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].
Mehler, A., 2017. Central African Republic. In Africa Yearbook Volume 13 (pp. 200-
210). Brill.
ReliefWeb. (2019). 5 child soldier myths - World. [online] Available at:
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/5-child-soldier-myths [Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].
Sarah El Sirgany, C. (2019). Firing guns, finding bodies: Life for Yemen's child
soldiers. [online] CNN. Available at:
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[Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].
Stark, L. and Landis, D., 2016. Violence against children in humanitarian settings: A
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over the last 10 years, UNICEF. [online] Available at: