Report: Half-million children are soldiers

By Ronni Berke
CNN United Nations Producer

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- More than half a million children under the age of 18 are recruited into military service by governments and armed groups in 87 countries worldwide, a human rights advocacy group said in a report released Tuesday.

Of those, some 300,000 are engaged in actual combat, said the report published by the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers.

The 450-page "Global Report on Child Soldiers 2001" provides country-by-country details on military recruitment by government armed forces, civil militia, paramilitaries and non-state armed groups in 180 countries -- including the United States.

"The report shows that the problem of child soldiers is not confined to developing countries in conflict situations. Industrialized countries like the United States and United Kingdom also recruit children under 18 into their armed forces and deploy them to conflict zones," said coalition spokesman Rory Mungoven.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said he had not seen the report and could not comment. The report says that 17-year-olds can join the U.S. military with a parent's permission. Recruits 18 or older do not need parental permission.

Widely perceived as cheap and expendable, child soldiers tend to receive little or no training before being thrust into the front line, the report said.

Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, said he was recruited by the government army at the age of 14 after losing his parents in the civil war. Beah said there are several reasons why children are either in the military or rebel forces around the world.

"One is because they don't have parents or guidance," he said. "Because for me, I lost my parents in the war, and there were some other friends of mine who watched their parents killed in front of them. The military was able to sort of structure you and manipulate (you) to think that the best way to do something about what happened ... was to be part of the military, which will be a way of revenging the death of your parents."

The report found that overall, the situation has improved in Latin America, the Balkans, and the Middle East in recent years, while new generations of children are at risk in Africa and parts of Asia and the Pacific.

"Many of today's adult soldiers started out as children. And in some conflicts like Afghan or Angola, we are now seeing a second generation of child soldiers, the children of child soldiers becoming soldiers themselves," said Mungoven.

"One of the most disturbing trends is the fact that they are increasingly being recruited as children because of their value as children rather than because there is a shortage of adults," he added. "They're being recruited ... because their recruitment can be used to terrorize and control communities, because children can be drugged or conditioned more easily into violence and committing atrocities."

The London-based Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers is made up of a worldwide network of non-governmental organizations, academic institutions and national coalitions which are engaged in advocacy, campaigns and public education in nearly forty countries -- many of them in countries with severe problems of child soldiers.