Children under the age of 18 have been used by national armed forces and other armed groups in Africa. Typically, this classification includes children serving in non-combatant roles (such as cooks or messengers), as well as those serving in combatant roles. In 2008, it was estimated that 40 percent of child soldiers worldwide were in Africa, and the use of child soldiers in armed conflict was increasing faster than any other continent. Additionally, the average age of children recruited as soldiers appears to be decreasing.Rakisits 2008 pp 108-122 As of 2017, the UN listed that seven out of fourteen countries recruiting and using child soldiers in state forces or armed groups were in Africa: Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan.
Overview
Continental estimates Exact data on the number of child soldiers in Africa is not known, partly due to the inaccessibility of some regions. In addition, there are a high number of unregistered births in several African nations, making it difficult to estimate the number of child soldiers in certain countries.
In 2003, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimated that up to half of children involved with state armed forces and non-state armed groups worldwide were in Africa. In 2004, Child Soldiers International estimated that 100,000 children were in use on the continent;, . in 2008, an academic estimate put the total at 120,000 children, or 40 percent of the global total of child soldiers.
The percentage of child soldiers as a proportion of all combatants ranges widely throughout conflicts in the continent from 0 percent to 53 percent.
In 2007, it was estimated that approximately 35,500 children were being used for military purposes in Africa's most intense conflicts in North Sudan/Darfur, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Nigeria. According to the UN, in 2016 children were being used by armed groups in seven African countries (Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan) and by state armed forces in three (Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan). Below are some of the statistics related to the recruitment of child soldiers in various African nations:
CountryChild Soldiers RecruitedSinceNorth Sudan/Darfur6,5002003South Sudan17,0002013Central African Republic10,0002013Nigeria and neighboring countries2,0002016 alone
Reasons for recruitment by armed groups Child soldiers are seen by armed groups as expendable and cheap to maintain. Other factors include the global proliferation of light automatic weapons, which children can easily handle; the relatively greater willingness of children to fight for non-monetary incentives such as honor, prestige, revenge and duty; and the greater psychological malleability of children relative to adults, which makes them easier to control, deceive and indoctrinate. Some leaders of armed groups have claimed that children, despite their underdevelopment, bring their own qualities as combatants to a fighting unit, being often remarkably fearless, agile and hardy. Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman suggests that the concentration of child soldiers in Africa is due to the shift among armed groups from being ideal-oriented to economically-driven. Additionally, countries like Sudan have shifted towards the use of child soldiers after the decolonization and independence from Europe in 1956. Countries were led into poverty, disease, war, and kidnapping, which in turn led to forced child labor.
Risk factors for recruitment Risk factors for child soldiers include separation from their family or home to live in an area of conflict. Sometimes these conflicts are far away, and even in foreign nations. Simon Reich, a professor at Rutgers University, argues that one of the biggest determinants in the recruitment of child soldiers is the lack of protection for people living at refugee camps. Reich cites the mass displacement and breakdown of rule of law that refugees experience as factors that allow for the recruitment of child soldiers to occur in these camps, and adds that he has found 1,100 attacks on refugee camps in Africa over the course of 50 years. The majority of child soldiers are forcibly recruited either through abduction, conscription, coercion, or by being born into an armed group.
However, there are still child soldiers that join armed groups of their own volition. Children in countries led into poverty resort to joining warring groups that provide materials they would not otherwise have, such as three meals a day, clean clothes, and medical care. In a 2004 study of children in military organizations around the world, Rachel Brett and Irma Specht pointed to a complex of factors that incentivize joining an armed group, particularly: Background poverty including a lack of civilian education or employment opportunities; The cultural normalization of war; Seeking new friends; Revenge (for example, after seeing friends and relatives killed); and Expectations that a "warrior" role provides a rite of passage to maturity. Many times the children recruited remain in the armed forces as they are forced into acts of violence against their own families to ensure they cannot go back to their communities. Other times, children are given drugs to alter their state of mind to facilitate the way their thoughts are shaped by people in command.
Manipulation tactics
Ishmael Beah gives his first hand account of his experience of being a child soldier in his book, A Long Way Gone, and the details are graphic. He explains the tactics of manipulation used to obtain and brainwash children, turning them into killing machines, which ultimately makes it difficult for them to leave and reintegrate into society. Children are stripped of their home and family, and filled with fear and uncertainty as they search for parts of their country that have not been affected by war in order to seek refuge. However, for young boys like Ishmael, they are not always greeted with open arms; in fact they are often chased away or captured. According to Ishmael, war ruined the hospitable nature of his country and replaced it with fear and distrust making entire villages afraid of young boys who they believe to be spies. Removing children from their homes and separating them from their families makes it easier for armies to recruit children because it makes them feel like they are part of a family again.Beah, Ishmael. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. Penguin, 2013. In addition to the loss of familiarity military commanders oftentimes force children to take drugs like amphetamines, crack cocaine, palm wine, brown-brown (cocaine mixed with gunpowder), marijuana and tranquilizers in order to disengage the child's actions from reality. Those who tried to refuse were beaten or killed, and according to Ishmael, taking the drugs made it easier for them to kill because it numbed them of any emotions. Once they were addicted to drugs they "would do just about anything that was ordered".
Manipulation plays a huge part in brainwashing children into becoming soldiers, and the military specifically targets children for this reason. According to an article by Vision, a child's underdeveloped ability to assess danger makes them the perfect candidate to take risks and difficult assignments that adults would normally refuse. Children are more impressionable than adults with a less developed sense of morals and values, making it easy for them to be shaped by a military official. Oftentimes commanders would use revenge as a tool to motivate children to kill. According to Ishmael Beah he was told by his commanders to "visualize the enemy, the rebels who killed your parents, your family, and those who are responsible for everything that has happened to you."
Legal definitions and obligations
Definitions The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines a child as any person under the age of 18. The Paris Principles, which have been approved by the United Nations General Assembly, define a child associated with an armed force or group as:
...any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities.
Obligations All African states are bound by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires the state to "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities". Most African states are also bound by the higher standards of the Optional protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which requires governments to "take all feasible measures to ensure that persons below the age of 18 do not take a direct part in hostilities and that they are not compulsorily recruited into their armed forces".
Trends While the majority of African states have set the minimum age of recruitment at 18 and others are actively considering the same, in countries that have had a history of child soldiers, such as Angola, the government has pushed to lower the minimum age to 17. Such cases are legal given that the international law sets the minimum age at 15. Given the age which international law has set, countries like Burundi and Rwanda do have their minimum age of recruitment set at 15. Additionally, in times of war and need, Mozambique reserves the right to lower their minimum age of conscription to below 18.
Overview by country
Algeria: Children and youth have been involved in the violence in Algeria, participating among armed groups with and without links to the Algerian government. The establishment of Legitimate Defense Groups, which were essentially private militias, in 1997 furthered the use of child soldiers, since these groups are not required to report on their activity, and the government had little control over them.
Angola: Though the government of Angola denies the use of child soldiers, NGOs confirm that child soldiers are involved in both state forces and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and later on in the Front for the Liberation of the Cabinda Enclave. The practice of rusgas, forcible recruitment of youth, was practiced well into the 90s. The government estimated in 2003 that 10% of the armed fighters had been under 18; however it is suspected that the number is much higher. Child refugees in Namibia are believed to have been recruited to serve in the civil war. As of March 2004, an estimated 16,000 child soldiers needed to be demobilized in Angola, though the civil war ended in April 2002. Child soldiers in Angola were excluded from assistance in demobilizing because the government did not classify them as soldiers. Those who had been child soldiers during the war were excused from compulsory military service but could still serve on a voluntary basis; indeed, some children who had come of age while in the armed forces chose to stay in the military.
Benin: There is no evidence of the enlistment of child soldiers in Benin.
Botswana: There is no evidence of the enlistment of child soldiers in Botswana; however there is not a formal age qualification for service.
Burkina Faso: Child refugees in Burkina Faso have reportedly been recruited by armed groups in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the early 2000s. However, there is no evidence of child soldier recruitment by armed groups within Burkina Faso.