Legal Studies Term 2 Assessment: Human Rights and Child Soldiers Essay

This essay examines the critical issue of child soldiers and their human rights, beginning with a definition of child soldiers as individuals under eighteen involved in military services, often in conflict zones. It highlights the various roles children are forced into, including combat, espionage, and sexual exploitation, emphasizing the devastating psychological impacts. The essay then explores the existing international instruments designed to protect children's rights, alongside the responses of non-governmental organizations and media outlets to these human rights violations. It references recent reports, such as the increase in child soldier recruitment in the Middle East and North Africa and the situation in Yemen, to illustrate the ongoing challenges and the urgent need for stronger protections. The essay underscores the importance of safeguarding children, who are the future of society, from the dangers of armed conflict and ensuring their proper development.

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:
https://www.child-soldiers.org/news/children-attacked-recruited-abused-in-conflict-
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:
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/02/middleeast/yemen-child-soldiers-intl/index.html
[Accessed 20 Mar. 2019].
Stark, L. and Landis, D., 2016. Violence against children in humanitarian settings: A
literature review of population-based approaches. Social Science & Medicine, 152,
pp.125-137.
UNICEF. (2019). At least 65,000 children released from armed forces and groups
over the last 10 years, UNICEF. [online] Available at: