Child Soldiers and the Duty of Nations to Protect Children from Participation in Armed Conflict

Luz Estella Nagle, Stetson University College of Law

Abstract

Children are used as armed combatants throughout the world. Some volunteer in order to alleviate family problems or escape from them, to achieve status in their cultures, or to gain protection and a sense of belonging. Many more, however, are coerced or forced to fight. The indoctrination process is brutal and can involve the most unspeakable depredations and assaults, with the goal being to break child soldiers down into killers who will do anything they are commanded to do.

The body of international law and international humanitarian law intended to protect children is impotent. In most situations where child combatants are present, the majority of children under arms are found in illegal armed groups engaged in internal armed conflicts against weak government authorities where any modicum of adherence to the rule of law is abandoned by both government forces and the armed insurgents opposing them or opposing each other.

This article focuses the debate on the conditions that cause children to become combatants, the laws intended to prevent children from becoming soldiers, the steps taken by the international community to protect them and to prosecute those who use children in armed conflict, and what can be done to rescue, rehabilitate, and reintegrate former child soldiers.