Examines causes, impacts, and prevention of child soldiers, a growing problem despite the United Nations’ repeated declarations forbidding the use of children in armed conflict. Though present in battles throughout much of history, children constituted an insignificant number of combatants; however, within the last two decades, 68 percent of conflicts utilized fighters under the age of 18, and 23 percent of the world’s present armed forces are age 15 and under. The causes are three-fold: (1) socio-economic insecurity which may force children to volunteer to serve as soldiers in order to survive; (2) technological improvements in small arms so they are easier for children to carry and handle; and (3) increasingly brutal warfare techniques which involve all members of a society, regardless of age or gender. Since shame and public scrutiny do not curb the practice, criminalization is advocated as the newest means to stop the practice. Governments need to prosecute both the leaders who make children into soldiers and the businesses that benefit from these armed conflicts; thus the costs will eventually outweigh the benefits. Rehabilitation programs for former children soldiers are needed to address physical, psychological, social, and economic problems and return these children to their childhoods. (IP-CW) Contents: 1. Children at war — 2. It’s a small world after all : child soldiers around the globe — 3. The underlying causes — 4. How children are recruited into war — 5. Turning a child into a soldier — 6. The implications of children on the battlefield — 7. The new children of terror — 8. Preventing child soldiers — 9. Fighting children — 10. Turning a soldier back into a child — 11. Looking ahead — Appendix : Optional protocol to the Convention on the rights of the child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.
