UNITED NATIONS - “Child soldiers are ideal because they don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid, and if you tell them to kill, they kill,” a senior official in the National Army of Chad reportedly told a Human Rights Watch researcher.
There are an estimated 250,000 child soldiers worldwide, although the exact number is hard to verify.
Overall, the number of conflicts in which children are directly involved fell from 27 in 2004 to 17 by the end of 2007, the report says.
over three-quarters of U.N. member states having now signed, ratified or acceded to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
The best way to fight this phenomenon is by keeping children in school or with their families and giving them alternatives.
Tens of thousands of children — particularly girls — are effectively rendered invisible during the demobilisation and reintegration process,”
clipped from: www.commondreams.org 